what has my point got to do with lowering game settings?

that's the thing. as time goes by our settings get lower. our game development depends on hardware development instead of improving the engine based on lower end specs. if they had done so they could probably do better wonders with better hardware.

then again that's just my wish, my point - that doesn't mean i don't know how things work. HW wars, things will always get better. no improvement no $$$ also. and in order to sell, that's where the developers make their game to work with those new hardware blablablabla.

but hey i've been PC gaming for mode than a decade and still intend to do so for long time. I'm more drawn to games on the PC than consoles.

it does help for me... i got 2 Windows XP pro installed in my rig... 1 gaming and the other for work... my work windows has so many software in it tat it lags... 3dMark03 for tat windows is roughly 9400+/-... While my games windows scored 9800-11000...

XBox can max settings...?
i don think XBox got 16X anti-aliasing rite...?
8800GTS enough to do tat...

well... when the 1st box XBox came out it's merely a match for PS2 in overall terms including(especially) price... tat also the graphic quality is barely a match to my ex-Rig... wif, Intel P42.8GHz HT, Gigabyte GA-81PE1000-G, Apacer 512MB DDR400 RAM, the Gigabyte 128MB ATI Radeon 9600XT, Maxtor 80GB/8MB HDD... until 2day...

Then XBox 360 emerged...

Processor:
# 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
# 2 hardware threads per core; 6 hardware threads total
# 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core; 3 total
# 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
# 1 MB L2 cache

their RAM bandwidth:
* 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
* 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
* 21.6 GB/s front-side bus

Graphic:
* 500 MHz
* 10 MB embedded DRAM
* 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines
* Unified shader architecture

RAM:
* 512 MB GDDR3 RAM
* 700 MHz DDR
* Unified memory architecture

HD support:
* All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
* Standard definition and high definition video output supported

source:teamXbox
some kinda Xbox fanatic site... which should be true... careful though... my spartans detected a couple of trojans...

So my explanation is the XBox OS might be optimized for all those specs cuz it's custom made... while our usual OS is not as optimized as XBox... tat's y i sure hope Vista will overcome this problem... and probably our drivers as well...


Bottomline:
XBox pros: hassle free, plug and play...
cons: not upgradable(performance wise), u can only play games and watch movies with it... if parents want to watch some drama then no more gaming...

PC pros: can use homework as excuse to get 1 from parents... can really do ur homework and manage ur phone, mp3 and many other things... can multi task... most parents won touch it so it's all urs... can upgrade if not fast enough... can download lotsa "stuff"... very flexible... requires efforts do build a good 1 which u will be proud of later...

cons: price...

my points of consideration in chosing PC gaming was:

1)I dare not defy my parents' hobby...
2)I love my Rig tat i'm proud to built it...
3)It's fascinating when u compare lotsa hardwares... like i recently noticed Celeron D 347(RM170) smoked AMD X2 3800+(RM200+) in Super_PI...

This post has been edited by t3chn0m4nc3r: Jul 1 2007, 03:51 PM

Specs don't mean that much actually.
Hardware abstraction layer is what's making Windows "unoptimized", same for other OSes. Unless you build on a specific chip(s), not a general platform, there's gonna be that pesky HAL sapping away lots of potential for general compatibility. But it's the ONLY feasible way that games are gonna run while remaining monopoly-free hardware wise.

BTW it's ALWAYS a good idea to use clean installs for games and games only.
TeamXbox is also run by the guys from IGN/Gamespy network so they're good.


[See how good Doom 3, Quake 4 and Prey ran on PCs. OpenGL developers tend to be more tender in optimizing for chips (they can't slack too much too ), coding seperate paths unless the chips are too uber, then id switches to a general renderer]

p/s: The 360 HAS upgrades. The upgrades are the developers (think of it in another way)! They push code harder and harder, making more impossibilities possible. See Project Gotham Racing 3 compared to 4, and Gears of War compared to Perfect Dark Zero. The developers push code harder than upgrades would allow. I don't think anybody thought that God of War 2 graphics could be run on the PS2 in 2001.

This post has been edited by X.E.D: Jul 1 2007, 09:00 PM

No, Vista Ultimate is not fully 100% optimised for gaming. But it includes some game friendly feature that only Vista Certified Games can use, like the upcoming Halo 2 will use the Drop and Play feature, where you put the game in the drive, and instantly play while the game is still installed in the background. Microsoft is hoping that all developers will adopt this approach, and also include Microsoft Live. The thing is, while Microsoft Live is good, you need to pay for the full Gold Membership. On a console that is not a bad thing, but for a PC, you have many alternative, such as Blizzard with it's own Battle.NET. Another thing is that Vista was built in tandem with 360, and in theory if you can run a game on XboX360 you can port it to Vista without much changing. But in reality it's not that simple. Monitors, ecspecially widescreen and HD are making it harder for gaming developers for 360 to port and not lose details on the PC.

lol .. halo2 need to enable UAC for it to play

err... ok... u got a point... paying every month for o9 play on XBox...? PC wif free alternatives...? i wonder which will ppl choose...

@dattebayo: no. You don't need UAC
@t3chn0m4nc3r: It's a yearly subscription of RM300++. You have a free alternative, Microsoft Live Silver. The difference between silver and gold is that:


Sorry for any typos. I type as I read the magazine,