Eh, not so much cutting edge. The XBOX used a P3 733, where as PCs had already reached speeds of 2GHz with the Pentium 4 and 1.7GHz with the Athlon XP 1900+. It also used 64MB DDR RAM. DDR was still new, but 64MB was too low for PCs, any gaming PC had to have at least 128MB, preferably 256MB. The most cutting edge feature was the graphics card, which was kinda like a GeForce 3 Ti 500, probably the fastest card at the time. A couple of months later though, Nvidia released the Ti4600 and Ti4400 which were significantly faster than the Ti500. Also, the PS1 was quite powerful back then. As others have mentioned, there were no 3D Accelerator standards back in 1995. Everything had to be done on Software, which put extreme strain on the CPU. Most people had a 486, so 320x200 was the resolution of choice for 3D games. SVGA (640x400-640x480 and upwards) pretty much demanded a fast Pentium, Pentium 90 and above. The Voodoo Graphics came out in late 1996 (more than a year after the US launch of PS1, 2 for the Japanese) and introduced Glide which rocked for 2-3 years. Direct 3D took another year with the release of DirectX 5 to present something good enough and it wasn't until DirectX 6 and 7 that it became particularly good. OpenGL was the best API all round but few manufacturers bothered to create a full ICD for it. Rendition died in 1997. Matrox did quite well with the G200 and G400, although you could just forget OpenGL with those cards. S3 was a joke. Nvidia's Riva 128 was full of problems, but still good enough, they gained popularity with the TNT and especially TNT2. 3dfx was good up until the Voodoo 3, the GeForce 256 and 2 pretty much killed the V4/V5 line and the company itself. ATi took a while to catch up as well, the Rage 128 had horrible 16bit dithering and it was a bit slow using 32bit, not to mention the drivers... So yes, PCs had a ton of problems, drivers that would break support with games, 3D accelerators that were too slow and even developers shunning certain APIs and preferring others. A lot of games only offered 3D acceleration through Glide, so most people had to play using Software mode. Some games offered no 3D acceleration! Anyone remember Outcast ? Unreal Engine games were the worst. Experimental OpenGL support meant 'DON'T PLAY USING THIS' and Direct3D was iffy at best. Deus Ex released in 2000 still suffered from that. Glide was the way to go with those games!
Get in here, DaE! I want to know the specifics What I see Built in PS Move Colour thingy Touchpad/LCD? integrated speaker (in controller) USB 3.0 Blu-Ray slot loading Big exhaust
I have a hard time believing that this is more than Sony's plan to put a fire under Microsoft's arse in order to make them rush their next machine to market. Not to mention that Sony NEVER releases stuff on time. Also, that controller looks like dookie.
Outcast not using 3D acceleration was by choice, since it used voxels. It had nothing to with driver issues, since in 1999 when it came out Direct3D was just fine.
Of course it was by choice. I never stated otherwise. Quite a few of the effects shown in the game would have been impossible to do with graphics cards at the time, such as water ripples and pixel shader like effects. Of course that meant that no PC at the time could run it on the maximum detail. I think the fastest at the time was PIII 600 and Athlon 650, which were a tad slow (not to mention incredibly expensive) when everything was turned on. Also hope you liked your 512x386 resolution . So yes, it was a cool experiment, but in the end it wasn't a pretty smart move. It ran like shit on the hardware most people had and how would you have liked it if you had spent some good money and bought yourself a Voodoo 3 or TNT2, but because you didn't have the fastest processor available you had to play the game at 320x240 or 400x300 at best?
I'm comfortable with 5 years, but yes the 10 years is a huge gap. It's weird how much developers can push out of these underpowered machines. Also how would DaE even confirm PS3 stuff? He's not a developer as such you know. Last system he developed for is the next XBOX. lol
It wasn't cutting edge when it was released. However having a fixed configuration opens up optimisations that you can't do when writing a PC game. The P3 did more per clock than a P4 & the amount of RAM was fine as you didn't have as much overhead of software running in the background etc. Consoles will often be sold at a loss up front because they need early adopters to buy the console and make it attractive for people to develop games. Over time the manufacturing cost will reduce and while they might drop the price of the console they will eventually make a profit & that is when the majority of people will buy them.
Agreed . PC developers have to take into account hundreds of configurations and incompatibilities that just aren't there in consoles.
He work on next gen console actually and all the leaked information on internet about PS4/Durango comes from DaE.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/390731/live-blog/live-countdown-to-playstation-4/Any info related to this?
I'll be paying attention to tonight's news. The Lack of Exclusives on the 360 have me ready to Jump ship to Sony land. But not right away. When Now gen support is 100% phased out I might make the leap. For now I think I'm just getting a 3DS for Project X Zone I think we can squash this no used games rumor too http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Sony-CEO-Does-Want-Block-Used-Games-PS4-42497.html From A YEAR AGO Oh wait...Patcher...so it is probably a lie
http://blog.games.com/2013/02/20/sony-ps4-live-stream/ Here's the live stream! I'm excited, I have a $50 bet running on the name here.
I disagree. When the PS1 came out, you had a relatively cheap and standardized platform capable of very good for the time 3D graphics with a decent amount of processing power and memory. To get something that comparable in a PC would have been pretty expensive. Plus PC didn't have the support behind it that the PS1 console did. PS1 went on for a good 5 to 7 years I suppose. So eventually PCs certainly eclipsed it. But at the same time the price of the console was falling. But the price of new computers which beat the pants off the PS1 certainly wasn't really going down. Sure you could buy a used PC that might be superior but that's a different category. Plus again back to games and the whole point of consoles being standardized platforms with strong developer backing. Back when consoles like the NES, SNES, Genesis roamed the living rooms you probably couldn't do that on any personal computers. I think it is time to see a new generation of consoles. Nintendo was a bit of a special case obviously but the 360 and PS3 have been around for quite awhile. While I don't think new consoles need to be out tomorrow, we should be seeing the rumblings of the next generation. I just hope that the new systems are designed well. Hopefuly they won't be rushed or put together sloppy.
I am still to this day impressed by what the PS1 pulled off in terms of early 3d Blew away the Saturn and even to an extent the N64. I'm hoping the PS4 succeeds in the areas the PS3 failed. IE not being a programing Rubix cube and also being leaps and bounds ahead of what everyone else has in store. I also hope they don't take features away in future models like they did with the PS3. Still pissed at the Other OS Removal. I would mind total BC either If they can pull such a thing off. I skipped the PS3 but If this can play PS3 games too It will be a big deal for me My PS2 serves as My PS1 so it would be a natural progression for My potential PS4 to be my PS3 as well.
So it's x86-based. Not much of a surprise, but it's still somewhat of a shock to actually hear. It'll be the first x86-based console since the original Xbox. They haven't said if it's Intel or AMD manufactured, though.
