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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
04/27/09
04/27/09
04/27/09
Rating HW from 1-10 and having the game list the requisite rating is not very "future-compatible". For instance, when released, the Geforce 9800 GTX would have been a 9, but now it would probably rank a 7.
04/27/09
04/27/09
Obviously, the game developers win with hardware spec-standardization. Furthermore, there is a point at which technical specifications will not improve games by that much. However, have we reached that point yet? If not, would this movement eventually result in customizable PCs being replaced with more versatile versions of video game consoles?
I'm still pondering, hence the rambling.
04/27/09
Can it play Doom? It might be a toaster.
Can it play Crysis? You could use it as a toaster when gaming.
Although, after reading the Kotaku article, wouldn't a little disclosure on the Futuremark scores required of a game, and the scores of various hardware configurations be sufficient?
On second though, this is far less complicated than it appears.
04/27/09
the composite benchmarks, like futuremark, don't really reflect a good measure of how a computer will run any game in question.
This is something that sites like Anandtech and THG and others have been fighting for a LONG time. . . if there were such a thing, their jobs would become MUCH easier.
do a search at either site for developing benchmarks and you'll get a great discussion about how complex it really is to come up with something that a: works, b: works across multiple GPUs and CPUs, etc. and c: works consistently across multiple games, drivers, etc.
04/27/09
Unlike the console world, which targets an exact hardware specification, the PC gaming community does not. Sounds to me like that situation is as easy to fix as developing for a predetermined system.
I don't feel sorry for game developers, who through their willingness to create utterly wanktastic visuals, render(pun intended) their games unplayable by vast portions of their target market. But, then again, I'm an Ubuntu user not a gamer.
It's really not that hard to predict gaming performance from those benchmarks. All that's needed is a common frame of reference(a baseline system), and some understanding of the points at which said game is GPU or CPU dependent. It's all about setting targets, and hitting them.
04/27/09
04/27/09
market's been on an upswing since january.
04/27/09
Next year's economy growth is expected to be 0%. So, if by upswing you mean we won't contract any further, you'd be correct.
04/27/09
04/27/09
The "Market" as a generic term is typically used in reference to the DOW Jones Industrial Average, which has been on a general up-swing since January.
The DOW Jones does not specifically take into account the overall expansion or contraction of the GDP, nor does it take into account month to month joblessness numbers. The DOW Jones is none-the-less considered to be the key indicator, and it's general trend over time will typically forecast the trends subsequently observed in other indicators.
In closing I would just like to mention that I know full well that I am being a pedantic jackass, I just wanted to make sure that you knew you were too. ;)
04/27/09
"will it blend?"
errr. I mean:
"will it play crysis."
seems worth while, but i didn't know there was a big issue with folks buying games and not reading the system requirements that are printed on the box. seems pretty standard to know if something will or not blend.
04/27/09
So a simple game will require a machine that can run 0.5 Cryses.
But a very complex, graphics intensive game would require a machine that can run 2.75 Cryses.
04/27/09
04/27/09
Not to mention the quality of the graphics that the PC is capable of producing, at higher resolution, than the console?
No thanks.
04/27/09