NVIDIA Quad SLI Disappoints 427
Vigile writes "While the death of PC gaming might be exaggerated, it's hard not to see the issues gamers have with the platform. A genre that used to dominate innovation in the field now requires a $1200 piece of graphics technology just to participate, and that's just plain bad for the consumer. NVIDIA's SLI technology was supposed to get a boost today by going from two GPUs to four GPUs with the introduction of Quad SLI but both PC Perspective and HardOCP seem to think that NVIDIA drastically missed the mark by pushing an incredibly expensive upgrade that really does nothing for real-world game play and performance. If PC gamers are left with these options to save them from consoles, do they even have a chance?"
Oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
More to games than graphics (Score:5, Insightful)
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't even need a single top-end card to provide an alternative to a console, let alone *four* top-end cards.
Requires? I think not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech like quad-SLI is there for people with more money than sense, or at least more money than they know what to do with- and at that point, fine, if they want to spend that money and basically support the graphics companies' development costs, let them. The rest of us can continue as we have, working with normally-priced hardware that does everything we need it to. No, we can't play the latest games at 200 FPS on a 30" monitor with everything turned on- but then again, most of us don't even *have* 30" monitors, so... who cares?
Really? What has this become the 'People' of IT? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a 150 dollar card I bout 2 years ago and it runs everything pretty damn well.
Re:Oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't let PC gaming die (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how much cheaper and prettier consoles get, they still won't be fully fledged computers that you can do with as you will.
With only consoles as viable games platforms, the modding scene will essentially die. Seeing as this is the primary source of independent games these days, then expect the standard of games to plummet as publishers have no real incentive to produce quality.
Furthermore, console makers have this tendency to lock you into their proprietary games networks, and unlike the PC it is not possible to get around this.
Re:Fishy (Score:5, Insightful)
As HD TV penetration rises, consoles will have to package more hardware to push the same picture quality. And thus the reason why we're seeing console going for $400-600 instead of $100-200.
-Rick
Re:Oh please (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not exactly like I can just throw a Core Duo and a new card into my 4-year-old computer that is still perfectly adequate for every task apart from gaming.
This isn't the problem with PC's (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
And PC game developers are silly to make anything like that a requirement to even play their game at a decent level.
After all, if they concentrate on only the high-end market, their customer base will be quite small. And unfortunately, the higher end the market, the greater likelihood of piracy. As explained in an article about videogame piracy [slashdot.org], if you develop for the largest market, then you can ignore the pirates.
After all, once you've shelled out $1200 for a kickass card, you want something to run on it. Yet, you don't want to pay the $60 for a game you'll use as a tech demo, so you'll probably pirate it, go "wow, nice graphics", and that's it.
Go after the people with requirements that an Intel GMA950 can fulfill (basically every machine dating back a few years), and you'll sell a lot of copies, and if it gets pirated up the wazoo, well, don't worry about it. (Also, don't try to sell to markets filled with pirates - e.g., China - why spend all the money translating when you won't make it back. Let the pirates do it for you!).
Sort of how the Nintendo Wii is doing so well - they don't cater for the traditional gaming crowd too much (they do, but Nintendo doesn't focus there), but instead on the non-gamers. The Wii can't compete against the PS3 or Xbox360, so it doesn't. It goes after a bigger market segment of non-gamers. Which is probably why "casual gaming" type games are skyrocketing - non-gamers can play, even their 5-year-old work PC can run it decently, etc.
Re:Fishy (Score:3, Insightful)
How about a bus that allows mice, trackballs, and other attachments to be hung on it. Then, put some more oomph in the console in memory and allow basic applications. With the new displays being sold, you could have your PC migrate to the console.
I do not see that coming. What I see coming is the PC, the console, the DVR, the DVD Player, etc all melting into an appliance that provides everything that the normal family wants/needs. It will feed multiple displays (with slots or bus attachments available to allow more displays to be hooked up and used by different people for different tasks simultaneously.) The funny part is that MS's *new* OS might be able to accomplish exactly this. It is modular, so you only need to load what you are going to use. It is multi-user, so it can accommodate multiple simultaneous users with different interface requirements, and it can be run without a GUI, which allows it to be used on a screen, a LED display, a console display, a PIP display, etc. MS wants the entertainment market. The thing they are missing is an OS flexible enough to scale from the entry to the high end. This is that potential (if you believe all the hype).
Will the console kill the PC? Nah. They will merge. Another product will emerge that will be some combination of the concepts of the two (not necessarily the best of each). And each one will keep on going as a part of the chain, or an independent component, whatever the individual consumer wants.
InnerWeb
Re:How many players per PC? (Score:5, Insightful)
And while you can get console-type controllers for your PC, not all consoles adequately support a full keyboard and mouse. Arguably a keyboard and mouse provide much better, or at least more flexible, controls in certain situations.
There's a reason consoles have been becoming more like PCs, rather than gaming PCs becoming more like consoles.
=Smidge=
Re:Oh please (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh please (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh please (Score:3, Insightful)
graphics != game (Score:3, Insightful)
I couldn't disagree more. What's causing this gamer to be fed up isn't graphics quality, it's game quality. From the plethora of patches, bugs, crashes and incompatabilities that plague PC games, to the sheer fact that most games are just badly done reshashes of successful predecessors.
I'd gladly take NWN2 with less fancy graphics if in return it wouldn't be a constantly crashing piece of apeshit, for example. I put down most MMORPGs after an hour or so not because the graphics weren't good enough, but because the gameplay is highly repetitive and I've seen it all before.
On the other hand, GTA didn't have the best graphics of its days, but it was addictive because it had great gameplay with good-enough graphics.
PC gaming could be great, especially where consoles lack. Morrowind, for example, was a better game than Oblivion for one simple reason: The compromises that Bethesda had to make on Oblivion so that it would work on a console.
And for the final nail in the coffin of the summaries argument, consider the Wii. Is it the winner of the 3rd generation console wars because it has the best graphics, or because it's more innovative and provides more fun than the two other "look, ma', bigger and more expensive than before" competitors? Heck, the PS3 is losing to the PS2 in sales figures, and I'm sure we don't have to discuss which of them has the better graphics card.
Re:Oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the biggest reason is for the most part PC gamers know what they want already. Console gamers see some pretty screenshots and art on the box and think hey, this Orange Box looks like a good deal.
PC gamers played TF back in 1998 and have been waiting for tf2 ever since, only to pre-order orangebox once it was available on steam and start playing the beta a month early.
Due to mod-ability and better multiplayer, PC games seem to last longer so you're more inclined to stick to the one you know and ride it out longer, whereas on consoles you're stuck taking more risks on whatever is available because you beat all that there is to beat on the game you have.
Re:Consoles always been cheaper (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd be very surprised if it were that high now. I suspect the blu-ray drive was the biggest cost, and I bet that's gone down a LOT. And since they're all the same (modulo some SKU customizations) they can easily drive the cost way down. PC components only get that way when a technology is perfectly stable, but they keep introducing something new every couple years. Anyway, the cost to Sony is irrelevant: the consumer pays a lot less. Additionally, no one cares about the "PC-like" architecture either. The experience is that they buy a much cheaper box that will play good games for the next four to seven years, period.
So sure, if you decide to slap the "PC" label onto everything, then yeah, the PC market is doing fine. Meanwhile, I don't think nVidia is going to have a strong season selling top-end video cards to only the people who bought Crysis.
Re:Oh please (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll never buy a nerfed one-trick-pony game console again (at least for the sake of its graphics), but I'll gladly upgrade my multi-purpose PC's video card every few years at a fraction of the cost and with orders of magnitude greater usefulness.
Re:Consoles always been cheaper (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fishy (Score:5, Insightful)
The XBox360 (which I own and love too), sortakinda does 720p. That's 1280x720. I say sortakinda because checking framebuffers on launch titles revealed some of them weren't even managing that... They were rendering fairly significantly lower resolutions and then upscaling to fill 720p in order to keep their framerates up.
Compare that to a $200 8800GT that laughs at 1280x720 for most games. Sure, there are some games with graphical effects WAY beyond anything I get on my console... but I can switch it down to console levels and play at full 1080p and beyond (I play most games at 1920x1200 on a 24" widescreen with the vast majority of settings maxed out).
Now it's true... An optimized system will always out perform a generalized one with identical parts when asked to perform identical tasks.
However, consoles also have absolutely zero room for upgrading over their five to ten year life cycles whilst PCs sit there benefiting from Moore's Law.
At launch, high end PCs usually match the console but for significantly more money. A year later, mid range PCs match the console for more money. A year after that, low end PCs tend to match the console for hardly anything more. From there on out, the only real arguments in favor of console performance come from comparing frame rates between a low resolution console with no AA (Forza, I'm looking at you) and a PC at dramatically higher resolutions, AA and AF maxed and a whole bunch of cool new graphical tweaks that aren't even an option on the optimized console version.
Both paths are equally valid. The PC, by going generic, has the ability to keep up with Moore's law and not wait on five plus year release cycles. Consoles, by going heavily optimized, can get the best bang for the buck at launch, translating in to greater profits for the makers/lower prices over time, and providing a single environment for games to be optimized for.
The bigger issue, however, is more likely how easy it is to download NOCD hacks, etc. for the PC and have one set of disks passed around a whole group of friends. Console gamers tend to need mod chips and, with Microsoft and Sony controlling the keys to the kingdom, can screw you the moment you go online and get the next forced patch. Game companies factor that in and would rather sell 2-5m units at $60 of Halo 17 with 3-6m turning up with copies etc. than sell 500,000 copies of Doom 18, at $30 a piece after Best Buy slashes prices, with 5-10m copies out there.
As a hardware medium, they're simply different choices. One gets more rewards up front, one pays them out over time. As a business medium for game makers, Microsoft and Sony tightly holding the keys to going on line makes consoles a FAR better investment.
Re:How many players per PC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh please (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sorry, very minor quibble, but there's a difference between PCI-X and PCIe. You meant the latter.
Re: NTSC (Score:2, Insightful)
The broadcast standard is 720 pixels wide, as this can represent the full 6 MHz range. It includes 8 pixels of the blanking area on each side, which, when eliminated, leaves 704 pixels. 640 is commonly used by PCs/consoles because it results in square pixels, and gives sufficient detail with slightly less storage/processing overhead.
As for the frame rate, it is 30 frames per second (not 24 as a previous post indicated), which are made of two interlaced fields (240 visible lines each.) Most games don't draw complete frames at 30fps, though -- they draw independent 640x240 fields at 60 fields per second, as it gives smoother motion.
So compare 640x240 60fps to what a gaming PC has to pump out, and clearly it's a much smaller task for the GPU. Hi-Def TV shifts the balance, though, as full 1920x1080 60fps is more than most desktop PC monitors support.
Re:Oh please (Score:1, Insightful)
This sounds like "console gamers are 'tards" to me. PC Gamers are obviously all well-educated on video games and console 'tards just see pretty and drool?
Seriously dude... come down off the horse.
Re:How many players per PC? (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you realize that a console is pretty much a PC with standardized hardware and very restrictive licensing as to what software can run on them?
The catch-22 (Score:2, Insightful)
Step two buy a PC
What is the appropriate cable from a PC with only a VGA output to a TV with only RF and composite inputs? Or should someone have have considered this at the "buy a TV" or "buy a PC" stage, and if I have already done that, I'm out $600 for a new TV?
But to give your procedure a full shot, I'll try it on my other PC, which (step three) does have an S-video output.
Console fanboy gives me a look back: "So you got Windows, PowerPoint, and YouTube on your TV. Good job. Now where are the games?" Too many major-label video game publishers dismiss HTPC gaming, claiming that same-screen multiplayer is for consoles only. During the PS2 era, multiplayer titles such as Soul Calibur and Shrek Smash n' Crash Racing would get ported to everything but the PC.
The problem here appears to have a catch-22 in it. Major video game publishers won't port games to the PC because of the TV connection mismatch, and PC makers won't promote PCs with TV output because of the lack of game software.
Re:Consoles always been cheaper (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, here's the difference:
Consoles are locked down and run only proprietary, manufacturer-approved games, while PCs are open and free to develop for. Modchips and Linux don't count, because they are illegal or don't have access to all the hardware, respectively.
If PC -- i.e., free and open gaming dies, it'll be a sad, sad day.
Re:How many players per PC? (Score:3, Insightful)
But otherwise he is spot on. We are comparing to consoles here, so no playing at 1600x1200 or at high settings with anti aliasing.
That usage paterrn does however mean that more game developers focus on creating split screen games on console. So the software availability on the console does become an advantage.
Of course, the PC has its own software advantage due to its better control options, and less restrictions on distribution.