How does PC with 8600M GT compare to Console grafics?

I have 1680x1050 resolution on my screen with a 256mb 8600M GT. Some of the games I played, such as FEAR, Virtua Tennis 3, Bioshock look amazing at native resolution.

I just wanted to know how the PC graphics compare to say the 360 or the PS3?



thanks

 

Powerful computers these days can top the latest consoles (XBOX360 or PS3).

In almost all cases (with at least a midrange GPU involved) a PC can create a prettier picture than a console, but it might not be at an FPS that is considered playable.

Right when the XBOX360 came out, it was capable of putting out better visuals than the best PC setup around. It's been a long time though, XBOX360 and PS3 are no longer top of the line tech, but they will closely replicate midrange PC visuals for now.

If you have an HDTV, I'd consider a console to be on par with a midrange (8600gt) PC. If you don't have an HDTV the console version will look terrible in comparison to your PC.

720p or higher, preferably 1080i, and you have a close match...and a modern PC will still win.

EDIT: Luckily, I have both.

 

The newest games can stand up to the graphics of the newer Consoles if the graphics are well done. Its mostly that part that chooses wich is better. The console games are often a bit better done / more advanced compared to cheaper computer games. But in FPS computers will loose, at least if you would be able to apply all the particle engines and articifial intelligense the computer would go unplayable, at least the laptops (exept maby some 10 000€ superlaptop). The consoles has so much better processor force and the games are much better optimized so there is a big diffrence. But computers are so much better to customize

 

console graphics easily outdo pc graphics. if you have an HDTV then the xbox360 will look absolutely killer on it. Lets not forgot, 99.9% of console games run without a glitch. We're talking 60 fps of gaming goodness. You need to see it to believe it. the 360 will pwn your laptop.

ps. i wouldnt know bout the ps3, but if youre torn between the 2...get the 360 anyways

 

It also depends on the game. Some games are horribly written on pc's while wonderfully optimized on consoles.

 

Umm anyone see the new Gran Turismo 5 Prologue stuff on GT that pretty much tells you that the PS3 isn't PC's little *****. GT5, Uncharted Drakes Fortune and Ratchet and Clank Future all proove to be extremely beautiful games. GT5P gives Crysis competition as the most realistic looking game to date.

 

I believe the PS3 has the weaker GPU based on the GeForce 7800 series but it probably compares to a 7900GT. The XBox 360 has uses the R500 which really doesn't have a PC equivalent since it's has capabilities somewhere between the X1800 series and the HD 2900. I would say that the XBox 360 GPU would perform pretty close to the X1900XT though. Either way they are both significantly faster than the 8600M GT which is slower than the desktop 8600GS which performs the same as a desktop 7600GT.

 

I don't understand why people ever namedrop Drake's Fortune. The gameplay videos that I saw were so generic as a third person shooter. I didn't see a single original or redeeming quality about it.

Does GT5P support real damage models? Until they do, it only looks realistic until you bump into something and realize there's no substance under the frills.

On topic: With the obvious ramifications of console optimization and the fact that their GPU's are technically more powerful than the 8600m GT, the conclusion is obvious.

 

Well the consoles output a very low resolution 1280x720 which is 720p and 1080i is just an interlace mode where the console upscales the picture and doesn´t add anymore detail. So the console isn´t running the game in 1920x1080 in progressive mode since then the games would crawl.

Gears of War runs in 30fps for most of the time, though it drops below 30 sometimes, same with Oblivion doesn´t run at 60fps but more in the 30fps range and still drops below 30 sometimes.

Multiplats always look better on the PC than the 360 or PS3, since you can use a higher resolution and max out AA and AF not to speak about texture settings, light settings etc.

If you run your 8600M GT at the same resolution as the 360 I´m sure you can max most games though not the horribly coded ones.

I own a 360, still the same games I own on the PC blows the 360 out of the water. I own both a laptop and a desktop gaming rig with a 8800GTX.

Still I can run Prey and Quake 4 at 1920x1200 on my laptop with an overclocked 7800GTX at around 40-60fps maxed out which is higher than 1080p

I would like to see the 360 play Prey at that resolution and see what framerates it outputs then

If I run Oblivion on my laptop with the same settings as Oblivion on my 360 and same resolution I output more than 30fps and it usually never dips below 30 either

 

Well it depends on how well the XBox 360 version is optimized, but it may well be faster. The XBox 360's GPU certainly has more processing power than a Go 7800GTX, but it may be memory bandwidth constrained at that high a resolution. The programmers would have to optimize it so nice 10MB chunks are always ready to move into the eDRAM with everything else cached in the RAM.

 

Yes probably memory bandwidth that hinders it's GPU.

 

PCs can look better, but unless you have incredible performance, you'll notice slowdown. Like, if you usually get 50 frames per second, something intensive could drop it down to 25, and then you'd notice bad performance. Only something like ~130 average and ~70 during intense moments will prevent this.

On a console, the framerate is far more stable.

 

My 8800GTX is very stable

 

There are 2 things that make the biggest difference here. First, consoles all have certification requirements for games that get released on them. That means the console manufacturer has to green light every game that goes to their system, and they all have minimum performance requirements, so yes, every game on a console will perform at least reasonably well most of the time. PCs don't have any certification requirements (which also means lower cost of entry, more originality, and more variety), and compounded by the fact that lots of console ports are shovelware, performance on PCs is more variable than on consoles.

As far as the tech side goes, while most consoles are still capable of matching if not beating PCs on pure processing muscle, in practice, the limiting factor becomes storage/memory. Where as PCs have 100s of gigs of HDD on top of the DVD/CD drive as well as at least 1 gig of system ram if not 2+ and 256MB+ of video memory, consoles are limited to much less memory and storage. If you are talking about the 360, you're talking a standard DVD for all the compressed content (yes, it can be more than that uncompressed, but the level of compression is limited due to the fact that consoles have to uncompress basically everything at runtime) and 512MB of shared system/gfx memory. Since not all 360s have HDs, games aren't allowed to rely on HDs for functionality (except in a few special cases, such as MMOs), which means no large area for uncompressed content (ie an install) or even a page file (ie virtual memory). As such, whereas a PC can have gigs of textures, console games have to be much more frugal in their memory usage, which means either much smaller levels and games or poorer graphics quality.

 

How would the ATI Mobility HD 2600 compare graphically to console systems? Thanks in advance

 

You seem to only speak of the 360. Also...512mb ram on a pc is not the same as 512mb ram on a 360. The memory on a console is specifically built for that console. Totally optimized for just that. I believe consoles will always have an advantage as far as fps stability, because the system is always constant. Everyone that has a 360 has the same exact specs...excluding hdd and IP connection. With PC...theres way too many variables. Untill developers require only certain TOP of the line cards or stop coming out with a new one ever 6 months...PC's will always lag behind in that area. Also consoles have completely different processor architectures. They shouldnt be compared. Actually 360 could...but PS3 with the cell processor is a different story.

 

Em. The HD 2600 is even slower than the 8600M GT so it goes without saying that a console can outperform it. With the HD 2600, the XBox 360 isn't even at a memory bandwidth disadvantage between it's 256GB/s eDRAM and 22.4GB/s GDDR3. The PS3's RSX is weaker than the XBox 360's R500, but it's still 7800GT/7800GTX class and superior to the HD 2600 and presumably the Cell's help add additional vector processing power.

In terms of memory and storage limitations on consoles, I don't think it's an issue at 720p or 1080i. The 256MB of GDDR3 for the RSX should be sufficient for those resolutions and even less an issue for the R500 with it's 10MB eDRAM and 512MB unified GDDR3. Although memory could become an issue at 1080p. Storage space really isn't as much an issue for the PS3 with Blu-ray. While DVD-DL may seem limiting, the XBox 360 was actually designed with procedural synthesis in mind, which means that instead of loading huge premade models, the models are actually generated on the fly by the 3 dual threaded PPEs, which largely alleviates media size and memory issues. Of course this requires a different way of thinking and assumes the 3 PPEs actually have sufficient power to keep up with the GPU.

 

No amount of fancy architecture can make up for a 200%-800% greater amount of RAM. You are right that console memory and PC memory are somewhat different, but not to the degree that takes the bottle neck out of the equation. Consoles take advantage of being an almost 100% devoted (I say almost because they all still run some OS underneath games) platform, and that's what pulls them within striking distance of PCs, but trust me, memory and storage constraints hit consoles pretty hard. No matter what architecture you are on, you simply cannot shoehorn 700MB of textures in to 512MB of RAM.

 

PC graphics on a powerful video card with a game optimized for PC will look better than any console anytime - that's a fact of life.

Problem becomes in 2 years when the 8800GTX isn't top of the line anymore and the new games require a 9800 or something to play at max settings while the 360 and PS3 are still pumping out games that have been specifically designed AND optimized for the console.

In short - if you keep upgrading, PC is tops. If you want to only spend money once and not worry - go with the console.