PC graphics '24 times more powerful than Xbox 360'
Published Jun 16 2012, 11:12 BST | By Mark Langshaw
Modern PCs have significantly greater graphical capabilities than the Xbox 360, according to an Nvidia engineer.Simon Green told New Scientist that home computers running the company's GTX 690 graphics card are 24 times more powerful than the Microsoft console.
© Epic Games
© Epic Games
Epic Games recently showcased its next generation Unreal 4 graphics engine on a PC powered by Nvidia's GTX 680, which is said to be half as powerful as its latest hardware.
Green went on to say that cloud technology could be the future of the gaming industry, pointing out that "the whole idea of owning a separate piece of hardware to play games on might be completely redundant" years from now.
Epic, which has been working on Unreal 4 since 2003, confirmed that the first game powered by the next generation engine will arrive in 2013.
Elsewhere, Final Fantasy studio Square Enix has been demonstrating the power of its new Luminous graphics engine.
Watch a video of the Unreal 4 graphics engine in motion below:
It can cost millions and millions of pounds to make a AAA title for the consoles right now so it's totally wasted power. There's no way a company will make games for a machine that's that powerful because of the cost so it's irrelevant. As long as people buy consoles in big n umbers and they will because people don't want the hassle of pc's then the consoles will always be just below the benchmark of the best graphics in gaming with the pc getting the best versions but not by the sort of margins these computers can handle.
June 17th 2012 at 7:45pm
"the whole idea of owning a separate piece of hardware to play games on might be completely redundant"
... in other words they want to move back to a version of the old arcades, but in the cloud, asap.
June 17th 2012 at 6:29pm
Unfortunately, while the hardware is light years ahead, barely any games take advantage of it thanks to the limitations of the consoles. Most PC games are ports - a mere afterthought.
June 16th 2012 at 7:20pm(+1 like)
Most stupid statement of the day.... of course the latest brand new hardware is going to be a lot more powerful than a 7 year old piece of kit! My new laptop I bought last month is significantly more powerful and bigger tech in it than the other one I have that is 7 years old too! The fact that the Xbox is managing to still produce great games on hardware that is 7 years behind it's PC rivals says a lot for the long term usability of their hardware. Gamers know that when they buy a console they are not buying the best graphics, best online or the best speeds..... they are buying simple plug in and play convenience that is a "one size fits all" way to game rather than checking "requirements" boxes on the back of each game box and then spending a fortune every 2 years upgrading kit! PC Gaming is by far the better gaming experience, but is also by far more expensive overall.... just like a full £2.5 million flight simulator the pilots train on is better by far than a home PC but again, you have the costs and hassles of having that!
To flip the quote in reverse...... will Battlefield 3, Black Ops 2 or the new grand theft auto work on a 7 year old PC and still achieve the quality experience that an Xbox360 can achieve today?
June 16th 2012 at 5:31pm(+2 likes)
PC gaming maybe more expensive, but you pay for what you get.
The funny thing is, of those games you named, they have a history of being better on the PC. Battlefield 3 on the PC is superior to the console version, most COD games use dedicated servers and the GTA mod community is impossible to implement on consoles.
The relevancy of old PC's being able to play current games is zero. The fact that consoles hold back gaming as a whole, is far more relevant. Developers either have to develop a crappy version for the consoles (like Battlefield 3 or the Sims series), downgrade parts of the PC version to make it easier for developers to push out faster or flat out ignore the console market altogether (Diablo III, Star Wars: The Old Republic). No matter what, someone loses out the vast majority of the time.
Unintentionally, consoles hold back gaming development.
June 16th 2012 at 8:52pm(+1 like)
No they dont, consoles hold back graphics development, a good game /= good graphics. ie minecraft. You are stuck in a 90s frame of mind, take your elitist thoughs elsewhere.
June 17th 2012 at 9:35am(+1 like)
New PC games should not always be built just for the latest hardware because most people don't have any near the latest and greatest GPU or CPU. New PC games should be able to take advantage of the new hardware but also work great on old hardware.
June 17th 2012 at 7:24pm
I think you completely miss my point...... the fact is the Xbox 360 is using 7 year old pc components and therefore is not going to be able to compete with 2012 superfast PC's.... the entire statement is a complete load of crap because it is the same as comparing a 2012 iPhone 4S to a 7 year old Nokia.... of course it is going to be faster, better and capable of more things! What I am saying is try playing the current generation of games that work on a 360 right now, on a PC that is 7 years old and you will see that a 7 year old console CAN still keep up with the games and look fantastic, while a game for a 7 year old PC will look incredibly dated and sluggish. Yes, a PC is going to have better graphics than an console in 2012 but that is because the components are paid for by YOU and not mass-produced as cheap as possible by Microsoft. Therefore you have the budget (and often 3 times the cost to your budget) to buy the best systems to run games that are better looking. Nobody is denying that PC games look better...... but to make a statement of the above saying they are quicker is stupidly obvious! Compare ANY technology from 2012 with tech from 2005 and you will clearly see great leaps and bounds!
June 18th 2012 at 4:39pm
pcs are infact cheaper than consolers for gaming. Think how much you spend on a console game? 45quid? we all know how much most pc games "CAN" cost factor in say 700quid for system you build (not rocket science) and you will play pretty much every game released each month if you know what i mean, whereas u have to wheel n deal with 2nd hand stuff on a console to play games and still leave yourself WELL OUT OF POCKET.
June 16th 2012 at 5:29pm
I do know what you mean but the same thing you're referring to also applies to Xbox 360 gaming. I play the latest and greatest Xbox 360 games ;-)
June 17th 2012 at 7:25pm