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Is PC gaming dying?
In the recent years, with the advent of 3D cards, PC gaming has jumped leaps and bounds both in terms of gameplay and graphics. Thanks to the advancement in hardware and software technology, you can now experience the almost realistic-looking super-detailed graphics in hi-resolution on your monitor screen.
Recently, ATi released a couple of DirectX9 demos that show off the powerful features in its flagship GPU, the Radeon 9800 Pro. From the demos you could easily figure out that the introduction of photorealistic future games is right at the corner. Crystal clear waters, soiled mountains, realistic movements of human models are now possible only because of the powerful hardware technologies used.
Yes, all demos are always nice, but what about the real games, can we actually play them? This is where the good old PC with all its whiz bang pixel shading, trillion processes per second hardware takes the fall. And it is believed, the bigger they are the harder they fall. So who exactly has managed to completely shake up the PC gaming market in one fell swoop? Is it the Sony’s Playstation2, or Microsoft’s Xbox, or Nintendo? Surprisingly, it is none of them, it is just a bunch of lazy programmers.
Let me put forward to you the debacle that is PC gaming. We have the latest technology around today. A GeForce 3 Ti500/Radeon 8500 64MB card is at least 3 times more powerful than the “graphic synthesizer” present in the PlayStation2. The Xbox has a cut down version of the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 running on a 700MHz Pentium 3 processor. The Nintendo’s GameCube works on a reduced version of the Radeon 8500 and which runs at nearly half the speed. The cutting edge graphic hardware of the PC is so far ahead in terms of both technology and speed that the consoles have to go through a major generation change just to keep up with it. Amazing isn’t it that we have the fastest hardware on the planet and no innovative games to play on it?
Let us first go in a little deeper on how PC software works along with the hardware to produce the games that we see on screen. First is the layer of the hardware. Then there is a driver layer which acts as a translator for the software instructions. Then there is the Operating System Layer. Then there is the Application or game itself. And than there is you, the user. That is a total of 3 layers between you and the hardware. Thanks to the de-standardization of PC hardware, the different combination of hardware and software can result in an infinite number of combinations. Due to these ambiguities, Microsoft released the Direct X set of APIs that allow a general standardization of hardware and software. Even then we have a million problems to deal with. Driver incompatibilities, feature missing hardware, corrupt Operating Systems amongst other things.
So to make a really well performing game, the programmer should make sure that it uses the most efficient route in order to make it work. Make sure to optimize the game for several different types of popular hardware and embrace the APIs that are OpenGL and DirectX. This would mean that even your low end GeForce 2 MX 400 should be able to run cutting edge games at 640X480 at a good detail level. To achieve this level of performance a lot of hard work is needed. Such a game is indeed being developed by a rather popular company called ID software. That little game is called DOOM 3 and it is the world’s most advanced graphic engine. No game comes close to it in terms of sheer graphic quality and realism. And due to its highly efficient programming, it is able to run at a decent pace on a low end machine.
Honestly speaking, this is the only game that I could come up with that promises a well optimized code. The others are a whole different story. Let us take the example of GTA 3, a rather popular game ported over from the PS 2 to the PC.
GTA 3 took over a year to come to the PC from the Playstation 2. The coders promised a highly optimized game which would run ultra smooth on even the low end machines, thanks to the ample power the PC wields. GTA 3 was released and along with it were a myriad of bugs. GTA 3 cannot save properly on several machines, GTA 3 cannot produce proper text on Windows XP machines, GTA 3 jerks and stutters like anything on high end machines, and is completely unplayable on low end ones, GTA 3 cant do this, GTA 3 cant do that. These are just a few of the problems associated with an otherwise amazingly addictive game. GTA 3 for some reason stuttered on all ATi cards (even the high end Radeon 9700!) and had defective fogging even after several driver updates from ATi. On the other hand a mid range GeForce 4 MX could easily run this game. Does this mean that the GeForce 4 MX range is more “powerful” per say than the Radeon 9700? Not by a mile! So what exactly is going on? Well you see the programmers decided to do some short cuts and program a code which was VERY sloppy. On the other hand the PS 2 version of GTA 3, although lower in graphic quality, remained silky smooth through out on a far inferior hardware. Why is that? It is because the original code was tightly coded around the PS 2 hardware and was used to an optimum thus producing a game that was perfect in its implementation. You see, the PS2 cannot afford to have “patches” and every factor is tested to the maximum before the game is released.
Another example is that of Need for Speed 6 for the PC. This game was released simultaneously on all formats (PS2, XBOX, GCUBE, and PC) and the PC version by far was the worst. It had a variety of problems with a variety of different hardware. It used to stutter, page and jam on high end machine with infinitely powerful graphic cards. A couple of patches and driver updates later did the game start functioning right. The same was with the conversions of Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PC. The game refused to work on any computer except the ones with the GeForce 4 chipset, and even on those machines presented a lot of graphic and sound problems.
Enough with conversions. Let us check out the PC “original” games that are proving to be a head ache for all of us avid gamers. First person shooter game, Soldier Of Fortune 2 had enough problems in it to make a gamer commit suicide. Bad clipping, extremely messed up graphics, pathetic sound and utterly sluggish controls. This was supposed to be one of those games that would highlight PC as the prime platform for gaming. The highlight that it did was to stress on bad programming. Notice this major bug. If you own a system with 256MB of RAM (“recommended” by the way) the game would stutter and page upon first load, but upon second load it magically becomes smooth. Wow what a nice bit of programming. The so called “Gold Edition” of the game is supposedly fixing this problem. The exact same problem lies with Jedi Knight 2 which is in coincidence made by the same developer, Raven.
Project IGI 2 was another joke released on the PC. This game completely lacked support for ATi, SiS and Matrox cards. All of these cards suffered with texture corruption and would “Stutter” upon the weirdest of things. The game would jerk when you would be looking at the barren ground, but would run smooth when 20 soldiers would be running towards you on the very SAME piece of ground. Really does not make any sense.
Is it that the PC is so hard to program for that optimality is never achieved? I don’t think that this is the case. The PC is the EASIEST form of programmable tool available with the biggest information base. With the advent of DirectX 9 high level shading programmability the PC has turned out to be the easiest to work and optimize than any other platform.
The Microsoft XBOX is basically a PC in a box. If we compare the XBOX to any high end machine it pales in comparison. It has a cut down GeForce 4 Ti in it and runs on a 700 MHz P3 Tutalian processor coupled with 64MB of shared Ram. Even midrange PCs are at least twice in raw speed compared to this console. Yet the XBOX version of Splinter Cell is significantly better than the PC version both in terms of visuals and smoothness. Its flagship game HALO would require a mammoth PC just to run on a standard resolution when it will be released here in summer. It is very frustrating for us PC owners that we have spent so much money on our machines and end up getting half baked products. Reportedly, the XBOX version of Doom 3 would be running at a better pace then majority of the best PCs out there.
And for all of you Counter Strike fans, here is a bit of bad news. The next generation Counter Strike called CS: Condition Zero would be far better on the XBOX than on the PC. It will be utilizing all the high end shader trickery on the XBOX to vastly improve on the graphics, while the PC will be stuck with the old CS graphics. It really is a sad situation.
Here is a list of the top 5 poorly coded games that would run bad no matter what hardware you throw at them:
1) Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
2) GTA 3
3) Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance
4) Deus EX
5) Gods and Generals
I am not claiming that all console games are technical masterpieces. But what I am trying to suggest here is that they are a lot better programmed, and thus provide a significantly better experience then the poorly coded PC versions. I own a PC and I love my machine and would never trade it in for a console. But with the consistent trend of releasing buggy software has managed to push an avid PC fan like me to look in to the direction of the console. For years critics of the PC platform have claimed that this platform would collapse under the onslaught of the next generation consoles. But it looks like that it is NOT the sales of consoles which are hurting PC gaming, it is the pathetic coding. Here is hoping that the DOOM 3 engine can save the ailing PC gaming scene cause us PC Gamers badly need a messiah that would rescue our beloved, although slightly buggy gaming platform.
The writer
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