Yakoob on 11/12/2010 at 15:29
Sulph nails it. Coding for the 360 and PC is pretty much the same thing (same libs, same sdks, same tools), except that PC has to worry about million different combination and idiosyncrasies.
though I'll contest Sulph's last point:
Quote:
Not leveraging the power of a platform when you can for a trivial amount of effort is just sheer laziness.
In many cases, it's not as simple as adding an ini field for width and height of the screen. Take our last game for example, which relied on a lot of post-processing visual effects for both "ooh shiney!" effect as well as gamplay elements. It was locked down to 720p (standard x360 title), and increasing it further would break all these effect horribly (or kill performance altogether).
I'm not saying that's always true, but there are cases where upping resolutions takes considerable reworking of post-processing, rastar UI, performance issues etc.
Sulphur on 11/12/2010 at 16:08
Eva: Wasn't speaking literally there. Apart from a fancy lighting option and the usual turn on/off this feature or that, there's nothing specifically enhanced for the PC.
Yak: Fair enough, but when you're using middleware like UE3 and its (mostly) platform agnostic tools that are modular to an extent, I imagine a lot of those issues would be mitigated somewhat. And things like texture maps could easily have their quality upped for the PC given artists work from high quality sources anyway.
sNeaksieGarrett on 11/12/2010 at 16:11
I don't consider any one platform the best one over the other. They all have their pros and cons. I hate how people argue over which console is the best. While it's probably okay to claim that xbox 360 is the king (at least right now), we can't forget all the problems it has had since launch. (You know what I'm talking about, the "red ring of death" crap. Xbox is not perfect.) If I could really afford it, I would have all three consoles. Hell, I already have two of the three. (PS3 and Wii.)
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Analogue movement really shines with vehicle control. For this reason a gamepad with analogue sticks will always shit upon keyboard when it comes to most Racing games. Gamepads are also far better for controlling your team of little men in a lot of Sports titles.
Totally agree with ya on that point. I've played racing games on the PC without a gamepad, and it certainly lacks something that the controller has. I used to claim mouse and keyboard was the best, but I can see now that it's not perfect either.
Eldron on 11/12/2010 at 16:12
Quote Posted by Sulphur
... And things like texture maps could easily have their quality upped for the PC given artists work from high quality sources anyway.
Most often not, and even if it did occur, like with characters, it's a mess digging up every single texture asset and re-export it.
Inconsistency in texture resolutions would've been worse.
Sulphur on 11/12/2010 at 16:21
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
But forward movement in a console FPS is tied to where you're looking. It's the same thing isn't it?
Terrible wording on my part. With a mouse, if you want to strafe at an angle to any axis you point in that direction with the mouse and press the forward key. With a pad, you just push the left stick in the direction you want without having to move the camera at all.
Papy on 11/12/2010 at 16:30
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
Totally agree with ya on that point. I've played racing games on the PC without a gamepad, and it certainly lacks something that the controller has. I used to claim mouse and keyboard was the best, but I can see now that it's not perfect either.
I've played racing games on PC and it was a much better experience than on a console with a gamepad. The gamepad lacks precision compared to a... RACING WHEEL.
henke on 11/12/2010 at 16:52
You can get racing wheels for consoles as well y'know. The discussion here is about gamepad vs kb+mouse. Movement in most games is certainly better with a gamepad, even though aiming isn't.
Sulphur on 11/12/2010 at 17:18
Quote Posted by Eldron
Most often not
Hmm. Are you sure about that? There has to be somewhere artists got large resolution assets over the past ten years for those 'ultra' quality textures. I imagine the source files were cut down to size for tiling or mapping, but the originals would be there.
Quote:
and even if it did occur, like with characters, it's a mess digging up every single texture asset and re-export it.
Surely nothing that having a central location with organised assets in the first place can't take care of. If that's in place exporting can be easily dealt with by batch export jobs.
CCCToad on 11/12/2010 at 17:18
Quote Posted by henke
You can get racing wheels for consoles as well y'know. The discussion here is about gamepad vs kb+mouse. Movement in most games is certainly better with a gamepad, even though aiming isn't.
Duh.
Its why movement-focused games like Madden, beat em ups like DMC, or platformers (generally anything 3rd person) work better on console while anything first person works better on PC.
