Console quality of PC games...

I've did many searches on the pros and cons of console games versus pc games, but i couldn't find anything on the quality of console games vs pc games.
I don't own a console such as xbox 360.

My main questions I want to ask it:

1) Do console games have options like PC where they can adjust which resolution they want to play it in?
2) Can they adjust their anti aliasing settings?
3) Can consoles adjust texture quality, etc?

I guess, what are the limitation of console quality? Or do they come standard with default qualities (shades, curves, etc) at max settings -whereas PC you have to crank up settings...

 

You cant adjust settings on a console game, they are already optimized for the best performance with the best visuals possible to the hardware in the system.

 

YIKES! really? so that means their standard is a PC's maaaaxxxxed settings?

in other words, their quality is MUUCCH greater than a PC's?

 

No, the quality of a console game is optimized to the systems hardware...

 

so then my main concern is, how better is the quality of consoles vs pc (At its maxxed)?

 

PC>console graphics wise

 

Negative! BIG N-O. They are optimized to run on consoles. That ISNT' to say the consoles hardware is going to outperform a PC. Generally consoles will have smaller textures (less detail in the textures) and will run at a lower resolution or an upscaled resolution (more or less a lower resolution on a bigger screen, gahh that's a horrible explination no one chew me out for that please). What kind of rig do you normally game on?

In short, a game on the PC will look a lot better than the same one on a console. Now there's a LOT of "if's" that goes with ALL of what I said.

 

No. A console's quality is tuned to the power of the platform, while keeping it at playable framerates. You can't really do an apples-to-apples comparison between PC and console graphical quality. A console only has one hardware configuration, therefore the game just needs to be designed to run at the highest quality possible while having good performance. With so many different PC configurations and speeds, the games need to be configurable so you can tune the game to get the best experience out of the hardware in your particular computer.

My desktop PC is faster than a PS3/XBox 360 for most games, yet my laptop is slower. But my laptop and desktop can both run the same games. So the difference is the settings that they run at, making the quality of game X be lowest on my laptop, higher on the console, and highest on my desktop.

The one thing you get with consoles is tuning, so for a PC of exactly equivalent hardware to the console, the console will run slightly faster with higher quality, in general.

 

Not this again. /facepalms whole face off

The two consoles games are usually set to run @ 1280x720, with a fluctuating 30fps.

Your PC gaming experience will be based on the hardware you pay for.

720p + 30fps isn't hard to achieve on any decent machine.

 

my rig is in my sig

yes thats a gtx20m in sli

 

So...yeah...in short, unless you like entertaining the idea of wasting your money, don't waste your time with a console. In some instances a console is more suited for people but, you ALREADY have a rig that far outperforms a console and some other gaming rigs.

 

It also depends on how you'd define quality. If by quality you mean the quality of its game play, content et cetera, I'd take PC over consoles any day, thank you very much.

 

Also, keep in mind, people generally sit about 5 - 10 feet from their TVs, while they sit just a foot away from their monitors. PC games have to look better and run faster at resolutions topping 1920x 1080, while a standard def TV is like 640 x 480 (I think).

The last time I was playing at that resolution was Doom.

 

*Facedesk*

No, quite the opposite actually. Consoles run at 1280 x 720 at all times, except for the few rare PS3 games that run at 1920 x 1080. Hell, some PS3 games run at 960 x 600 or something similar. You take a look at a comparison of GTA IV on a PC then look at the console version of it, and you'll see that the PC has better shading, textures, draw distance, resolution, and various other effects. Basically, consoles run GTA IV at 1280 x 720, textures on low, draw distance on something like 20, render on low, just about everything on low. You'll notice that a decent PC (i7 920, GTX 285, 6GB RAM) will just about max the game.

I know that GTA IV is a terrible example, but it's the only game I can think of at the moment.

Also, the Xbox 360's GPU is basically on par with an X1950 PRO, and the PS3's GPU is on par with a 7800 GTX. And I know that they operate in completely different ways, but I'm telling you, PC's are way better at gaming than consoles are (in terms of graphical power).

 

The PS3 runs GTA4 in 1120x630.

A desktop computer can run GTA4 in 1920x1200

The end.

My laptop with a 9600m GT (gddr3) runs cross platform games like Call of Duty *better* than either console. That said, it doesn't run them twice as well or anything, and it cost about 5x as much.

You can build a desktop for around $400 that will just destroy either console.

 

You also have to remember that you're comparing something that's brand new, with state-of-the-art technology to a 4 year old, $199 machine with a GPU that has 48 shaders and is clocked at 500 MHz. (Xbox 360)

Not that fair of a fight.

 

Nothing to do with fairness. It is what it is. The argument for consoles is an economic one, and possibly a social one.

The cool thing about having money is that you get to choose what you want to buy with it. You *could* buy 4 year old technology for $200, or brand new tech for about $400 that is leaps and bounds better.

Or you can go the portable route and spend quite a bit more.

 

I doubt that you can build a $400 desktop that can play games at the same settings that a console does.

One of the things a console guarantees is simplicity. No patches, no drivers, no installing (some PS3 games excluded). All games will run on first try, and there's no frame rate counting. Even on the PC, I prefer to purchase all of my games through Steam, if not just for the fact that there's no patching, and almost everything runs on the first try.

 

The other argument for console is Smash Bros.

 

...and a console will never perform better than is does right now. A PS3 will always have the same processors, the same graphics, the same RAM, and the same clock speed. The 200mhz processor in my old Sega Dreamcast from 1999 would still be a 200mhz processor today, and I have no way to change that. A game that ran sluggish on a Dreamcast in 1999 will still run slow on a Dreamcast today. A game that ran sluggish on my PC in 1999 will likely run a bit better on my PC today. On that same tangent, I can load Starcraft, from 1998, on my modern PC today and it will run. I can't take any of my Dreamcast GDROMs and run them on any current console.

Sure there's patching. Some games, like Team Fortress II, are patched nearly constantly. Steam itself is patched nearly constantly. Games on Steam get patched and updated like any PC game.

 

It is interesting to note that when Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware specs were announced it was pretty high.
But desktop PC's edge would be that they can be "upgraded" unlike console units, which is more probably "fixed" unless you forcefully modify it.

Sooner or later, desktop PCs will overpower current top console games but that will be the time Sony and Msoft will develop more powerful console units for us to shell out another fresh supply of $$.

 

It's not really legitimate to say that consoles are "$199 machines" or anything else like that. All consoles are sold at a loss. The business model for consoles is to sell the machine at a loss to build an install base then make money off the games. I remember hearing that the best business strategy that MS could take when the PS3 was released was to go out, buy all the consoles, and dump them in the middle of the Pacific.

And joelfonzie, the "sooner or later" is usually a year or 2 after the consoles are released. But they don't release a new console then. As I said, consoles sold at a loss, money made off games. Every new generation of console is actually a major cost to the console maker and a risk to shrink and/or dilute/split thier game market. Believe me, if Sony could get away with having people still use the PS1, they would have never made the PS2 or PS3.

Also, when the PS3 and 360 were announced, they weren't really that high end on specs. They were decent, but definitely mid grade (even concidering the PS3s crazy multicore design). The difference is that consoles have a super-minimalist OS, so there is less operating overhead. Hell, the 360 actually reboots in to every game you play (remember the early days of gaming where you had to make boot disks to run games at decent perf? Yeah, that's pretty much what consoles do.) That means it takes less to run at the same perf as a PC.

 

I must add something to this thread. From what I've been experiencing I find my PS3 to have better quality than my PC. What do you guys have to say about this? Am I just imagining things or does a PC really have better quality than PS3? (Played on HD TV)

 

NO WAY, A GTX 20M???

 

If you are playing at native res on your lappy and getting 20-40 FPS in games with mid settings, yes, your eyes are tricking you. I think people actually subconciously accept a lower quality image when it is on a TV as opposed to a computer.

 

You must be imagining thing's. Played at a decent res the Pc quality will be much better, even when sitting 7 inches away as compared to 7 foot away on your couch.

 

Yeah you are imagining it. Plug your laptop into the TV and see what happens.

PS3Killer1
PS3Killer2
PS3Killer3

 

This is the real test. You'll be amazed the quality difference between a monitor over a TV.

 

Nah, TVs just scale MUCH better.

 

Those screenshots (better labeled as photos) don't convince me. Use the screenshot function on your laptop.

As for consoles, they aren't here to compete or bring down PCs. No, they're here to offer a more accessible way to play games (and watch movies, listen to music etc.).

If you look at them from the competition point of view then that's proof enough you don't need one.

A reason to have a console, like the PS3 for example, are exclusives like Uncharted and MGS4 you won't get anywhere else.

 

That's not true at all for one, and the other thing is that until only a few years ago, when HDTV started to really penetrate the market, "acceptable" on a TV was 640X480. By that time, 1280X720, well more than double the resolution, was already feeling anemic on computers. I really think it is a subconsious thing that people have different quality bars for things displayed on TV and on a computer. Hell, most cable companies still broadcast a bunch of SD channels riddled with compression artifacts, yet most consumers don't complain about that. Even netbooks aren't at SDTV resolution.

 

IMO a $200 console beats a more expensive computer. It'll play games, at optimal quality and performance, movies, music, slideshows and has web browsing capabilities (PS3). No upgrading required.

Of course, one can argue that the price of a console hides the price of the TV and accessories needed and that it won't do word processing, excel spreadsheets and so on.

But really, these days consoles aren't targeted at the hardcore.

 

Not exactly, the only time I think a console has been better than anything available for PC's were the first months when the 360 was released, later on PC had the best. And that happened more than two years back.

 

Yes, you pay the extras in the console game prices too.

 

Completely the opposite: They are in direct competition over gaming customers and developers. The emerging trend is for traditionally PC-only developers to now move (read: "sell out") to console-only titles, the biggest example being EA. In other words, PC titles are losing out to console titles since the average "console" crowd is easier to target (read: "swindle") and casual gaming in general generates more revenue while still allowing developers to push inferior hardware and software (all in the name of "accessibility for the gaming illiterate"). In other words, console gaming is creating competition that lowers the overall quality of the entire industry.

 

Ahaha, those are the only two games I got for the PS3.

 

No, TVs DO scale better. My office has a Bravia XBR9 (and I have an identical one at home), and the difference is very obvious. Try playing a 720p game (I used Fallout 3 and Burnout Paradise, the former had the effect more obvious than the latter) on a, say, 1080p laptop LCD with GPU scaling, and then connect your laptop to a TV via HDMI. It initiated this discussion on Beyond3D:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=55188
And I've been working on alternative scaling algorithms to replace the simple bilinear used by glBlitFramebufferEXT() for about a week now.

 

*sniff**sniff* smells like OP already knew the answer before he created the thread. it's a ridiculous question considering all consoles are made using near identical technology (meaning 2007 PS3 wont be any different than 2008 PS3). there's no reason to turn down the settings when it's already tweaked for optimal performance. as with many other things in life there are both pros and cons to consoles and PCs. there are are enough console exclusives that will keep ppl from abandoning the platform no matter how powerful of PC gaming rig they own. so to answer your question yes your laptop will have better graphical quality than a console.

 

Keep in mind, the user experience on consoles (unless you're unfortunate enough to be playing MGS4) kicks the UX on PC to Kingdom Come.

 

Wonder what detail the consoles could run crysis on, ima go for medium with some AA.

Any other guesses?

 

These kind of questions are point less...Asking about a console in a laptop forum?The consolee will obviously get flamed by any pc fan boys. Some pc ports of games are terrible, and some console ports are terrible. Like comparing nfs shift with ps3 and pc ill prefer the ps3 version.

 

Medium, no AA.

 

He's asking in the context of PC gaming quality don't you see? Give the guy a break...

 

I wouldn't put it that way. The installation process on PC is more difficult, but once installed, PC games are as easy or easier to use than console games 99.9% of the time, and the number and fitness of input device options isn't even comparable. Consoles do have a lower barrier to entry, but they also have a lower ceiling.

 

One should note, you're less likely to get game breaking bugs on consoles. How many times has someone installed a brand spanking new game only to find out there's a conflict between the game and some files on your computer.

As for MGS4, don't be so mean. It's a unique game and offers cinematics on a whole new level.

 

"Unique" and "whole new level" are overused phrases that do not justify their usage on a regular basis.

 

ROFL!!! Are you serious?

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Rainbow-Six-Vegas-2-Buggy-On-PS3-9580.html
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2008/12/top-100-11-gta-ivs-buggy-ps3-code.html
http://kotaku.com/5130241/fallout-3-bug-fix-update-hits-pc-ps3-and-xbox-360-today
http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/58726/KOTOR_2_is_buggy_-_blank_screen_bug

Console games get patched as much as the PC versions. Used to be the console versions never got fixed at all. It's a little easier to create games on consoles because of identical hardware, but bugs still happen, and almost just as often as PC.

Anyway, in my own experience console games can't even come close to PC, I rebuilt a RRoD FAILBox a month ago, and the graphics and gameplay were just awful for the games I did play. After the first two days I never turned it on again. PS3 on the other hand I see as a gaming accessory. I will sell the FAILBox and buy a PS3, just for the hope of seeing Shadow of The Colossus 2. XD I did compare Saints Row 2 the PC version and the PS3 version. After the first patch, Saints Row 2 is definitely far superior on the PC.

 

And oftentimes you can work around or solve bugs that occur on a PC game whilst on a console it is more or less a reload or replay kinda thing. Think Oblivion. Consoles lack its nifty console.

 

Saying that Saint's Row 2 on the PC is better than on the PS3 is a joke. Saint's Row 2 is a prime example of a poor quality PC port.

On my 9800m GS (which is many times more powerful than the GPUs in the PS3 or Xbox 360), it runs at 15-25 FPS (nearly unplayable) while at low settings, thus looking like GTA3.

 

maybe consoles have less patches,etc than PC

but it is not annoying to just download and update your notebook/PC driver.