Technological Advance Stalled In Gaming?

[jaysus]

as we all know, gaming has always been a driving element in the developement of computer technologie since the first tennis adaption on an oscilloscope, 3d graphics cards, cpu power and so on were heavily bound to the technological advance just as scientific simulation and military applications.

most game devs were eager to use the newest available technology to give their products the edge over others,

BUT this has changed...

 

since about 2003 there was no major advancement in terms of games developed, the technologie is still advancing and theoretically the PCs we are able to buy now are able to handle even the most hardcore hardware intensive games like crisis, however game developers produce most of their software for the Xbox360 and the PS3, two consoles which are nearly a decade old, a century in computer tech terms. And objectively looked at, the graphics and game mechanics didnt really develope since oblivion came out, we still have no acceptable physics, the graphics still suck even in the most rescently released titles like modern warfare, mass effect 2 or dragon age and so on. And this is no wonder, the technologie in those consoles is ancient!!! with the mediocrity of their performance there simply is no advancement possible, the pcs many of us own by now on the other hand could run GTA4 3 times at once and still not stutter, if it was optimized for directx11 and other available tools.

What we see now is a dangerous satisfaction of game devs and their marketing/management who thinks the Xbox and co are the non plus ultra, if you develope a game and want support of any kind you have to develope for these dusted consoles or drown trying.

 

But are we satisfied? i certainly am not!

of what use are things like directx11 with physical calculation support and other stuff like DDR5 memory if there is not a single application worth using that employs these abilities?

are microsoft, sony and their slave developers trying to keep us in the stone age? do they not want to proceed further in the land of the unknown?

 

its obvious that they dont want to develope a new console to save money,

so what can we do to get our beloved game developers back on track? is there even anything we as customers can do? or we as part of developement teams for newer titles can do if our bosses want to get the support and the possible customer base of console gaming?

[Nihilisaurus]

~Buy PC, ignore console. Liquidate existing console owners and use assets to fundPC game development and further liquidations.

 

OR you could hope they do something with gameplay instead of a parade of ever-shinier toys...

[ub3rman123]

The reason that gaming advance is being held back is because the developers do not want to alienate the customers with lower-end computers.

 

Ever tried playing Oblivion with detail set to ultra-low?

[jaysus]

alienating low end consumers is a vital point,

however there has to be an end to that eventually,

nearly 10yrs old pcs shouldnt be taken into count, they never did in the past, for example was every installment of the quake or wing commander series of the past a step foward and noone cared if you needed to buy a bit more ram or somin, and honestly i dont know anyone who played oblivion on ultra low settings, i used to play it on a 10yr old computer and had the same graphics as the guys playing on xbox, now that i have somin faster i want somin to use it for too... there always was a game or two that needed up to date hardware, by now there is no title with those requirements,

new consoles used to come out every few years and people still bought them, the same goes for pc hardware but thats kinda not the point as most game devs do not develope for pcs anymore but base their games on the antique xbox360 which is truly a shame,

 

from a modellers point of view that really annoying, you make amazing high poly models that look totally like real life does but the games you develope them for require them to get calculated down to somin that looks dated, comically, toyish and totally destroys most of the effort put into the models and textures.

 

all that hype about new graphics cards and so on isnt worth a dime if there is no title out to make use of their power, and there are not a few but many people who by now bought directx10 or even directx11 gfx cards for example, nearly no pc user who honestly likes gaming and is willing to spend money on it is still using 10yr old PCs.

sure there are people who do but if mankind would only orient its possible achievements on the slowest, most backward minorities we would still dwell in caves and worship wotan.

 

i also agree that "shiny toys" isnt all there is to gaming but lets face it, movies didnt stay black and white and got voice overs eventually simply because it gives an easier to achieve immersion value, true there are outsanding movies of the silent black and white area but how many people watch that stuff? who here has actually seen metropolis? barely anyone...

 

the technical possibiliteis we have now would allow for such amazing feats as physiced clothing, wind, realistic fluids and so on in realtime, stuff that for improves the visual side but also allows for new, untapped areas of gameplay features like destructable environments which arent scripted or pre-calculated like in bad company and co or the ability to use ones surrounding according to how we could do in real life, namely pick anything up and somehow use it, things that simply arent possible with those old school consoles

[ub3rman123]

You also have to remember that making a game have good graphics takes a lot longer than one with mediocre graphics. All those extra polys and high-rez textures take time.

[Vagrant0]

You also have to remember that making a game have good graphics takes a lot longer than one with mediocre graphics. All those extra polys and high-rez textures take time.

It's actually a bit more complex than that since often more detailed models are created in order to have good bump mapping. The fact of the matter is that there is a visual roadblock which companies have not yet been able to cross. The roadblock is essentially the fact that more detailed models means exponentially more polygons, and more data in textures. For instance, a 256x256 texture requires 4 times times the amount of memory that a 128x128 texture requires. A character model with 30000 polygons may be neat and smooth, but when you have a dozen of those characters around, the video processors can't keep up as well.

 

Point cloud data is a possible solution, but it remains a bit rough, hard to work with, and is not actively being sought out by developers because it's unproven in gaming. And that's really what it's all about. Companies havn't invested in newer technology since 2003 because the market and the economy in general has been in the crapper for nearly that long. A company which is just barely holding itself together isn't going to invest money researching new technology (which then has to taught to devs) when the technology they have is doing good enough. Gaming companies have also been sitting and waiting to see if this motion capture stuff is just a return of an old fad, or if it's here to stay.

 

As for consoles, like it or not, that's where the money is. Consoles sell more games, are less prone to piracy and legal issues, and are easier for the average braindead consumer to operate.

Edited June 23, 2010 by Vagrant0

[Sinophile]

First of all, computer technology has advanced much faster than any other field of technology. Look at all the advances in automotive technology or medicine. A car engine in 2003 is not much different than one made in 2010. Likewise, A Viagra pill made in 2010 doesn't make you twice as horny as a pill made in 2003. Also notice that you don't hear about cloning and genetics in the news then you did back in 2003. It was inevitable that computer technology, or more specifically, computer gaming, would also slow down as well.

Companies haven't invested in newer technology since 2003 because the market and the economy in general has been in the crapper for nearly that long.

I would also like to point out that since 2003, Cell phone technology has also come a long way. We've also seen the rise of Social networking, such as Facebook, twitter, and Myspace. Notice how Apple, a very successful company in a very poor economy, has yet to make a console. What sort of GPU do you think the Ipad has?

 

 

nearly 10yrs old pcs shouldnt be taken into count, they never did in the past

I would assume anyone who doesn't upgrade their PC with new hardware on a regular basis probably aren't buying new games on a regular basis either. Still, you have to look at it from a profiteer's perspective. They are looking to make money, and see innovation and advancing technology as an means to make money, rather than an end in itself.

 

 

~Buy PC, ignore console. Liquidate existing console owners and use assets to fundPC game development and further liquidations.

 

OR you could hope they do something with gameplay instead of a parade of ever-shinier toys...

 

Ok,disregarding PCs and focusing only on consoles, which console has thus far enjoyed the highest sales? Which console has the highest end hardware?

Also, I would like to note the trend of popular music games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Bottom line is, consumers would prefer to spend their money on fake plastic musical instruments and yoga boards than high-end graphic machines.

 

as we all know, gaming has always been a driving element in the development of computer technologies since the first tennis adaption on an oscilloscope, 3d graphics cards, cpu power and so on were heavily bound to the technological advance just as scientific simulation and military applications.

I would like to argue that point. Computer technology was originally designed for practical purposes, but then later used for more entertaining purposes. Case in point would be the internet, an invention meant for military communication, then used by Universities, then businesses, and finally, consumers like us.

 

however game developers produce most of their software for the Xbox360 and the PS3, two consoles which are nearly a decade old

I take it Math isn't your strong point, The PS3 was released late 2006, meaning it will turn 4 years old this November. Also take into consideration the time and money that goes into each console. The playstation had been in development since 1988, but wasn't released until 1995. Also take a look at systems such as the Sega CD, 3DO, Neo Geo CD, Jaguar, and dreamcast. Many of these systems were technologically advanced for their time, but were oftentimes overpriced, or poorly marketed, and huge flops. I would also like to note that older consoles such as the PS2 still enjoy some popularity

 

 

Consoles sell more games, are less prone to piracy and legal issues, and are easier for the average braindead consumer to operate.

I was almost offended by this comment, then remembered how important it is to be easily offended on the internet. Just because I don't want to memorize every piece of hardware in my system, spend an hour installing the game, then downloading patches, then adjusting a zillion other settings just to get the thing to work does not make me braindead. Some of us prefer simplicity.

[jaysus]

@sinophile

 

car tech has been around for about 100yrs by now and otto benz basicly perfected it back then yet, we only make it more efficent nower days

 

medicine however has vastly advanced since 2003, most of it you might not realize but if youd read some science mags or somin youd see that we for example made strong improvements on genetic engineering since then, just cause its not in the news doesnt mean it doesnt exist

 

pc tech didnt slow down either, in 2003 the usual GHZ number of CPUs was around 2x2 now its at 4x3 to 4x4 or even 6x4, ram went from sdram to DDR3 and even DDR5 on gfx cards and so on

 

cell phone tech didnt actually improve since 2003 that much, sure they put better displays in and so on but the basics stood the same, they merely merged a bunch of tools into mobiles,

mp3 players, cams and inet capabilities werent that common before but for example the apple newton was a handheld pen steered beast back in the 90ties yet, basicly an iphone without phone and in black n white

its only the increase of those social services (lol word play :P) that changed and their availability for the "average" user, they still use the same infrastructure and the same tech though they used years back, thats why porn streams became so slow in rescent times :D

 

I would assume anyone who doesn't upgrade their PC with new hardware on a regular basis probably aren't buying new games on a regular basis either. Still, you have to look at it from a profiteer's perspective. They are looking to make money, and see innovation and advancing technology as an means to make money, rather than an end in itself.

you didnt quite get my point i guess, back in the good ol days game devs usually went for the best possible tech to produce an awesome, awe inspiring title whereas now they use somin very outdated to make a quick buck

 

Ok,disregarding PCs and focusing only on consoles, which console has thus far enjoyed the highest sales? Which console has the highest end hardware?

Also, I would like to note the trend of popular music games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Bottom line is, consumers would prefer to spend their money on fake plastic musical instruments and yoga boards than high-end graphic machines.

well im a consumer too and i dont like that stuff at all, however its true that many people enjoy this stuff, but this doesnt mean that we have to make with what we have for eternity, guitar hero would be even nicer if we could see ourselves in a realistic remake of woodstock for example, emerged in 3d space instead of choppy comic like graphics

 

I would like to argue that point. Computer technology was originally designed for practical purposes, but then later used for more entertaining purposes. Case in point would be the internet, an invention meant for military communication, then used by Universities, then businesses, and finally, consumers like us.

well thats what i just said, but you missed the point that games improved upon it very heavily, without quake and the vodoo cards we might still be playing 2d jump n runs and scientific simulations would still need an additional doctors degree to be interpetable, the military now uses gaming devices to control their drones also, simply put you cant take gaming or entertainment out of the equation, they all play in each others hands ....or well, they did...

 

as to older consoles, yes i also played on a dreamcast with my buddies till the early 2000s, however they still came up with a new one from time to time and usually adapted the then up to date computer specs to get the best games possible whereas games nowerdays orient themselves on the specs of the consoles instead of those much more advanced ones on the pc like they did in the past

 

I was almost offended by this comment, then remembered how important it is to be easily offended on the internet. Just because I don't want to memorize every piece of hardware in my system, spend an hour installing the game, then downloading patches, then adjusting a zillion other settings just to get the thing to work does not make me braindead. Some of us prefer simplicity.

then buy a DELL or MAC and be happy... thats what most console gamers dont get i guess, you dont have to use the most up to date hardware or mod your pc to become somekind of freaky mashine from the future, you can just plug it in and enjoy if you wish so too, but it offers those of us who like to toy with their their tools the ability to do so and hence achieve better graphics, better performance, etc

console users dont need that it seems, they are content, content like, to use an example from the animal kingdom, sheeps are for example, thats as far as i understand how vagrant meant it,

also they tend to defy more powerful tools for simplicity which kinda reflects the lifestyle of sheeps too, simplicity is simply somin that can mean many things, sadly on consoles it means less options, less possibilities, and im not talking about being able to watch your favorite pay tv channel on them.

content leads to stagnation which is the arch rival of advancement, if our forefathers would have been content with sticks and stones we would still play with them but thanx the allmightyness of nature they werent and now we have 3d googles (which make my head spin, but hey at least its somin)

 

@uberman123

 

just as vagrant said, better graphics dont necessarily need more time to create, the high poly models for example made for mass effect 2 are as life like as they can get, however those that could run on the console it was made for look kinda medicore, but even for those you need the high quality models as to make the textures look descent, a typical charcter model for example has about 9 million polygons before it gets projected onto a model with about 20 thousand polygons to run in realtime, with the current hardware and some clever engine (which wasnt developed yet as everyone is content with the xbox) we could however go up to 100 thousand polygons (at least) per character instead of the 20k under the same environment by now,

heck actually we could produce models faster if we wouldnt need to optimize every last lil polygon of it (zbrushs decimation master could do wonders if 50k polies would be fine for a character and could save up to 10hrs of retopologization per model)

 

however thats only a small fraction of my major complaint, the better hardware we have now also offers the ability to spend performance on artifical intelligence which is a bit more clever than a piece of bread or better phyiscs where a dropped spoon doesnt flop around like a basketball and so on

 

3d modellers arent that expensive either, the major costs are created due to voice acting, muscial scores, the video cutters and mostly advertisement and service fees (servers, console port liscences, etc)

 

@vagrant

 

It's actually a bit more complex than that since often more detailed models are created in order to have good bump mapping. The fact of the matter is that there is a visual roadblock which companies have not yet been able to cross. The roadblock is essentially the fact that more detailed models means exponentially more polygons, and more data in textures. For instance, a 256x256 texture requires 4 times times the amount of memory that a 128x128 texture requires. A character model with 30000 polygons may be neat and smooth, but when you have a dozen of those characters around, the video processors can't keep up as well.

all true, however thats what im complaining bout :P, pc specs could now work with twice the load that they did in 2003, yet we still have to linger round with the possibilities of '03

also dont forget that if game devs would actually try to make use of modern equipment they would prolly by now have come up with better ways to deal with certain problems like they did come up with normal maps, anti alisasing, voxels and the like, i didnt see any improvement like those in the past years and im absolutely sure that is because they (all of them sadly) develope for consoles now and not pcs anymore

 

in regards to motion capturing, well it out since some time and some game devs use it, some dont, i cant understand why anyone with the ability to use it would defy it at all, making life like animations couldnt be easier, you pin a few markers on your body, swirl around and a programm converts the collected data into an animation you can then work with, you can even rent those systems if your company doesnt have the funds to buy one

or did you mean motion capuring in terms of users actions being registered by a game or programm?

well thats a different story alltogether i think, imo its useful and has a right to live,

but its simply a new input device, not part of the core, wether i use a joystick, a joypad, a mouse or a motion capturing device is all important to how a game feels but it doesnt necessarily change the whole concept of games or the need for faster hardware,

to pick up the car/engine example again id say its like the difference between manual shift and automatic, not like the difference between a cylinder motor and a jet engine

 

as fo your last sentence,

you packed uqite a lot in it :P

-i think its still debatable if consoles really sell more games since in most statistics download4pay sales via for example steam arent counted in

-as for piracy, you can still hack them but its much harder with blue ray (only atm due to their cost) or nintendo blocks (sry forgot the english word for those :P), piracy is imo being fought much harder by those annoying (really) online verifications (really annoyns me... honestly... nearly couldnt get my dragon age to run and accept the bonus thingy code for that crappy addon... same for mass effect -.- arrrr), but as far as i can see most anti piracy measure only backfired and kicked legit customers in the face whereas its still not clear if anyone really looses money due to virtual piracy

the only, in my eyes, useful anti piracy measure was for multiplayer online games with dedicated servers, the famous serial number, that worked and didnt annoy the butterfly out of its customers as much as all the others which simply failed anyway :)

-well braindead is a harsh word :P (tho i agree in many instances if i compare fallout to morrowind or even daggerfall for example), id say they are content...

@anyone

i get that console gamers are a market and you can make lots of money on it... but my point is that we are having a stagnating technological advance due to the orientation on aging hardware which is outdated, i just wonder if there is a way to incent developers to go for advancement instead again, maybe through money, maybe trough offering our virgin sisters to kali, i dunno atm...

 

 

 

gosh thats a lot to read... damnit...

[Sinophile]

you didnt quite get my point i guess,

Did I miss your point, or did you miss mine? If I missed your point, then it is your fault for not clarifying it well enough.

 

back in the good ol days game devs usually went for the best possible tech to produce an awesome, awe inspiring title whereas now they use somin very outdated to make a quick buck

 

Judging from your references to Wing Commander, and technology from the 90s, I am going to assume you are somewhere in your 30s, which would make you at least slightly older than me( I'm young, but I come from a long line of gamers). If we are talking about pre-mid 90s, back then gaming was a smaller, more specialized market, and "casual gaming" as we know it has yet to exist.

Secondly, since when have game developers cared about anything besides making a quick buck? There is no point in making something "awesome" and "awe-inspiring" if it isn't going to sell, at least in the eyes of a shareholder or CEO. I would like to cite an article I came across on another Nexus thread,

Sega's Financial Troubles

Sega Sammy posted full-year profits on Friday, but noted a "weak" Western market that caused sales to slide in its consumer business, which includes home video games.... ...The company said video game demand in the U.S. and Europe was "generally weak … due to the … sluggish personal consumption."

 

well im a consumer too and i dont like that stuff at all

You may be a consumer, but how large a segment of the marketplace do you, or those with taste similar to you, represent?

 

however its true that many people enjoy this stuff, but this doesnt mean that we have to make with what we have for eternity

No it certainly does not. As a matter of fact, before Guitar Hero, we had Dance Dance Revolution, and Para Para Paradise(DDR with your hands, woot!!).

Likewise, another fad will replace these soon.

 

guitar hero would be even nicer if we could see ourselves in a realistic remake of woodstock for example, emerged in 3d space instead of choppy comic like graphics

So would you have to dig your own latrine, then watch the place literally go up in flames at the end of thew game? Maybe they could make a mini-game where you play security and have to protect the band from out of control fans. I am sure a lot of fans of the series would appreciate better graphics, but that isn't a large focus of the series.

 

, without quake and the vodoo cards we might still be playing 2d jump n runs

 

Possibly, but all Voodoo really did was adapt technology that was used for decades in the military and other industries for gaming purposes.

 

 

as to older consoles, yes i also played on a dreamcast with my buddies till the early 2000s, however they still came up with a new one from time to time and usually adapted the then up to date computer specs to get the best games possible whereas games nowerdays orient themselves on the specs of the consoles instead of those much more advanced ones on the pc like they did in the past

By "They", I am assuming you mean game developers.

The PS3, PSP, and Xbox360, for most intents and purposes, are essentially PCs, they all have hard drives, operating systems, and can connect to the internet. Games released between 2000 and 2005, such as Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights, would've been very difficult to port to consoles that existed at the time(E.G. Xbox, PS2). Once again, look at it from the perspective of Bioware and Bethesda, why exclude millions of potential customers to simply cater to a few technological elitists?

 

thats what most console gamers dont get i guess, you dont have to use the most up to date hardware or mod your pc to become somekind of freaky mashine from the future

Or perhaps you don't get console gamers. My PS3, which I purchased earlier this month costs me $300. Assemble a gaming rig for me that would cost less than my PS3 and able to run current releases.

 

 

 

console users dont need that it seems, they are content, content like, to use an example from the animal kingdom, sheeps are for example, thats as far as i understand how vagrant meant it,

also they tend to defy more powerful tools for simplicity which kinda reflects the lifestyle of sheeps too, simplicity is simply somin that can mean many things, sadly on consoles it means less options, less possibilities, and im not talking about being able to watch your favorite pay tv channel on them.

content leads to stagnation which is the arch rival of advancement, if our forefathers would have been content with sticks and stones we would still play with them but thanx the allmightyness of nature they werent and now we have 3d googles (which make my head spin, but hey at least its somin)

Right, so console gamers prefer simplicity, and therefore are stagnating not only the gaming market, but civilization as well. If we were all console gamers, we wouldn't have such advances as 3D goggles. woot!! Well, maybe console gamers prefer to spend their time on other things, such as getting a date to the prom that isn't their mom or sister, showering more than once a week, going outside, and getting laid. See, how do you like being stereotyped?

 

More facts on console gamers:

-Console gamers are more likely to be female, and therefore more likely to get laid.

-Male console gamers on average, have a 20% larger penis than those who prefer PC gaming. As a result, they have have sex 3 times as often.

-Console gamers are also taller, better looking, less likely to get divorced, and all around better people than PC gamers.

[jaysus]

actually its not a question of who is at fault... such questions never help anyone...

 

if youre comin from a "long line of gamers" (may i say LOL) you should know that "casual gaming" as you call it was very well developed back in the 90ties yet with things like super mario, zelda , Lucas Arts adventures, Quake, Duke Nukem, Wing Commander, Warcraft, Command n Conquer and other titles which laid the foundation for most of todays still existing companies

 

segas trouble came from the uselessness of the sega saturn, not a dwindeling market, ever tried to use the saturn? its simply not fun, sega invested all it had in it and lost, simple as that, such things still happen today and always will, sega is still around tho

 

its not about how much of a market share i represent, i merely mentioned that there is a share which doenst need plastic guitars... casue we can play the real ones,

anyway i totally accept that there are people who enjoy it and not just a few too

 

once again you didnt get the point of better technical possibilities in the conjunction with guitar hero, its not about a totally different game i made my remarks about, it was about a much higher immersion value and a higher grade or realism, playing a cop to beat up hippies or a rowdy to beat up hippies or a hippie to live in dirt wasnt what i said, i dunno why you come up with such conclusions lol

 

vodoo cards were tech that was used for decades by the military? erm... openGL was an interface used by some silicon graphics applications thats true, mostly for architectural and other CAD tools but it wasnt at the level of "realism" to which the vodoos allowed games like quake to go even more so with its own 3dfx interface

 

well if you check the hardware inside a ps3... well you could get that for about 50$ if anyone would even still pay for somin like that... i for example am selling a laptop which leaves the ps3 standing in its dust atm for 100Euro... roughly 120$, couldnt ask for more and you get it with a display, a controller and many other nice features including an os that a bit more sophisticated than the ps3s thing,

if i assemble a gaming rig i wouldnt use parts ages old but the best of the best as to stay good for the next 5yrs at least which my last pc did, and then you would work with somin around 800$ which was the ps3s starting price (even tho its parts were dated by then yet) but if you want to go for ancient tech, go ahead, buy an office desktop system, it will still be faster than a ps3 whilst being at the same price level around 300 bucks

but you got a point that new titles run very well on dated consoles, well and thats my point, they develope for them and not for somin more sophisticated

 

if you wanna stereotype on the other hand plz learn how to do so properly without looking like a lil boy in an angry spree of devastation, make complex and based conclusions out of what is and not what a teenage boy might have in his mind when he sees a booby mag and how he imagines being superman

 

anyway, since i think its fun let me have a go at your way of argumenting:

 

-console gamers are most of the time female since most consoles send out radiowaves which destroy the testosterone production of your body and hence many console gamers grow boobies and are mistaken for girls

 

-someone with a larger penis than mine (typical pc nerd) would need an elephant to mate with and hence wouldnt get laid much... it simply wouldnt fit without killing the gal,

but have no fear, even tho we have sex organs of horses we dont get laid more often than you console guys, at least if i can trust the words of my consoling buddies who claim to get laid twice a day

 

-well i dont doubt youre better people, after all you give money to the retarded and medicore as to allow them to live too, nice of you, Saints, youre prolly also better looking since you grew boobs due to the badly shielded consoles, boobs make everyone much more beautiful i think

 

:teehee: