I still don't understand how id's new "cutting edge id 5 engine" can pull off 60 fps on consoles. I think that's proof that it is not cutting edge, because Frostbite 2 can't do 60 on consoles
That's not right at all if you consider for a bit that the Frostbite 2 engine has very different characteristics, including more physics simulation, destructability, more characters and vehicles on screen and etc. If you listen to Carmack's keynote at QC 2011, you'll see that massive shortcuts had to be taken to even get id tech 5 to run on consoles.
Meanwhile, getting Frostbite to run on consoles also required making shortcuts, but most of that is simply dropping the frame rate down to 30fps and optimizing for a stable frame rate. Getting id tech 5 to run on consoles required a massive amount of engineering effort.
You never notice your running a 30FPS until you play something that is running at 60. The difference in the way everything moves is phenomenal. The reason I say this is my rig plays the Witcher 2 between 27-30fps unless I am in a hugely dense forest. A friend of mine runs the game at 60+ (according to FRAPS) constantly and holy crap it almost makes me not want to play it on my computer anymore!
Exactly! The difference is huge. And it's not just the frame rate, but the wide gap in grahics too. I remeber playing Oblivion and my god, the repeating textures were everywhere. Every apple looked the same, all objects the same, just about every house in every town and the rocks and trees were all copy and paste. RAGE is something where basically no two walls are the same. Not to mention that you'll be racing around that terrain in RAGE pretty fast too. But this applies to all games when compared to RAGE, not just Skyrim. It will be hard to play a game where around every corner there is something unique and then go back to all other games where everything repeats.
Don't listen to these guys, OF COURSE YOU WILL NOTICE.
There's no way around it. If you play skyrim first, and then play RAGE, you will have trouble going BACK to skyrim. If you play RAGE first, your entire skyrim experience will be tarnished because remember, you're not just getting 60fps with RAGE, you're getting graphics that are far and away superior to that of skyrim.
The lesser of two evils is to play skyrim first - then RAGE.
But this will be the problem with most games. RAGE is setting a new bar for graphics. No game looks nearly as good at 60fps, especially considering that the entire world in RAGE is unique in terms of textures. No two places look the same. While you play skyrim, you are bound to notice repeat textures everywhere - EVERYWHERE. So your eyes are going to have a hard adjustment. It will be wonderful to play RAGE without this, and the uniquess of everything in the world will just seem NEW, because it will be.
I'd like to have the next gen of console now. But I suppose I'll be even happier when they do come out if I'm forced to wait now as the hardware improvement should be much greater in 2-3 years.
Hopefully, Sony drops the CELL for next gen and switches to unified memory. It will make all the developer's lives so much easier. I think what will happen for next gen is everyone will be running an Xbox 720, they'll all just have different names. The 360 design is pretty awesome and developers seem to love it. This explains why the Wii U is basically a stripped down 360. My guess is the next Xbox will be a beefed up 360 with much faster parts, but the same architecture. And my guess is Sony will simply follow the same design for the PS4 in order to avoid all the problems they've had this generation. I figure there will be some differences like number of USB ports, the optical drives will be different, the sound chips will be different, the GPU's will be of the same class but perhaps not exacly the same, and the amount of RAM on each system could be different. One might come with an HDD, the others not, and etc. Clock speeds will vary a bit.
My guess is they will all be running some beefed up version of the 360 CPU. I think the real deciding factor for next gen will be who can put the most amount of RAM in their system. The system with the most amount of RAM will take the generation.
It also appears that RAGE will not be a STEAM release and not a Xbox Live PC release. That sucks, as I was hoping to play the PC version and get all the achievement and still play co-op with a console buddy. I didn't want to 360 version because the PC version is going to get texture mods that will take the graphics even further.
For anyone wanting to know which version of the game will look best between the 360 and PS3, the keynote pretty much covers it. The short story is this: The 360 version looks better because it loads textures faster, so there are less instances where the textures might not look so hot. This is because the BR drive in the PS3 has a very high latency for fetching data, and Sony will not allow ID to do a full install on the PS3. Thus, you can't run the entire game from the PS3 hard drive. The 360 version will still have big issues when playing from the disk - the only way to get the 360 version to really shine is to use the HDD install option of the 360. A full install will require 20GB, ouch. However, doing the HDD install on 360 will give you the absolute best console version. Sony might allow ID to do a full install on the PS3, if they do, then both games should match up pretty close although there are still some concens about the PS3 version due to it having less RAM. There will likely be more frame dropping on PS3, and the PS3 doesn't allow for 8K by 8K textures. This means the 360 can have double the texture resolution in some places. The PS3 hardware is limited to 4K by 4K textures due to a GPU limitation.
All in all, this doesn't sound too hot for the PS3 version. Some people demoing RAGE on PS3 have commented on the texture details popping up as you turn and look around at stuff. The PC version will probably get 16K by 16K textures down the road. That is why I wanted the PC version.
On a side note, RAGE will likely be one of those game where having an SSD really could improve the graphics since the game will rely heavily on your HDD to fetch data constantly.
I'd say 7 times out of 10, I play on Hard. The reason is simple, normal is always too easy. I have noticed that when it comes to modern video games, that normal is the new easy. And that easy is the new super easy.
Hard is normal. And very hard is the new hard. But it also depends on the game. Some games are harder than others. Usually I play on Hard if I'm interested in the game. If the game is too hard I play on normal, but that is on rare occassion. And sometimes I play on easy, just to relax or explore the game. However, most gamers I know will start on Normal, and typically play the game again on Hard. I do the reverse if anything to pick up on achievements the second time around on normal or easy.
Sony's in trouble if they tried to reproduce Kinect at this point.
MS has an SDK out, there's a huge community of developers around Kinect, world wide - and they are all learning how to use Kinect on MS's platforms, the PC and 360. They also hold many new patents surrounding the use of Kinect in video games and applications, even in marketing and advertising. They have also done the years of search required to develope the software technologies that make Kinect possible. After all, the device it's self is worthless without the software that drives it.
For Sony to follow MS now, would be ill advised. This boat has been missed. They need to now look at other options. You can't just copy everyone if you're going to come in so late. Look at the PS Move. It's the Wiimote, 4 years late.
Will we next hear that the PS4 has a tablet controller like the Wii U too? Doubtful. My guess is Sony has learned from the PS Move and will not risk failing to be innovative again.
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