When are we going to get any games that have

So you want a game that requires a minimum of a HD 6990 to run just to get acceptable performance....

- Let's say the game will cost $40 million to develop.
- Assuming the HD 6990 and nVidia's equivalent represents 5% of the entire graphic card market share. I'm being optimistic, it is actually lower than that.
- The above means you are only targeting at best 5% of all gamers.
- $50 - $60 is the average price of a "high end" game.

In a very simple world with simple math that means in order to breakeven or make money the game would need to sell for $50/0.05 or $60/0.05. That works out to the game would need to sell for $1,000 to $1,200 in order to for the developer to even consider such a project.

Another way of looking at it is... This uber game sells for just $60, the developer only wants to breakeven (meaning no profits at all for anyone), and all marketing and distribution costs are excluded. In keeping with the $40m development cost that means 666,667 copies of this game must be sold. Just how many people out there have a HD 6990 or it's equivalent and also wants to play this game?

Since you are a 3D modeller, perhaps you want to stretch your horizons and start your own independent gaming company to design games for "Elite Gamers". Build your team. Search for investors.

The kicker is you will probably have to tell your investors that at worse they will loose their entire investment. At best they will get face value back after years of development and assuming the game is successful enough to break even. Good luck finding investors who wants to risk millions of $$$ and do not want to make a profit.

Well I was using the 6990 as a power example I don't mean they should make games right now that have that requirement.
Only to say that after next gen consoles I expect lower end graphics cards to have the power of the 6990. And I expect them to make more games like crysis that give the graphics industry a reason to make better cards. But not just one game like this we need a lot. Something that at max setting isn't even playable when its released so everyone with high end machines runs it at moderate and that still looks better than anything else.

Making a lot of non port games with a wide range of graphical settings is how you push the graphics card industries to speed up more.


Because right now from 2007 till 2011 we have had no obvious graphic enhancements for the end user. Crysis at max even looks better than a lot of games still released. 4 years no progress, Console and PC gaming should be separate not linked.

I already know a simple solution but it wont happen because believe it or not but the companies don't want to advance their technology at a fast rate they want to do it slowly so they can keep in business longer. Why would they produce their finest card tomorrow when they could produce a lot in between over many years and profit big.


Anyway what they should do with next gen consoles is make them use a pci-e slot and use pc graphics cards in them. That way people can upgrade their consoles just like we upgrade our pc's and that would force the companies to make better cards and better graphic games.

To my knowledge the idea of making consoles have replaceable parts has been discussed and dismissed here on Toms hardware...but for the life of me i cant think of the title...  

Suffice to say its in their best interests NOT to do it and therefore they wont. They charge quite a premium for whats inside and it wouldnt bode well for anyone (i think that was the gist of the article).

I disagree with you, i think games are progressing at a good enough rate visually. You really have to get a game from a few years ago to really notice the change, but the difference is there. If things progress too fast, like jaguarskx put it, noone will buy the game if not enough people have the hardware to run it.

I would gladly swap visual progress for improved gameplay and quality control. I increasingly find myself going back to my older, less visually impressive titles because they play so much better.

For the "new" games to require the high-end GPUs, it would mean that most of the gamers would have buy them. Currently, there are 2 big disadvantages: price and performance/watt. The 1st one is obvious: how many gamers would pay 5x (or more) the game price to play a game (yeah, I know it's an investment, but no gaming house will take this leap). Secondly, just like the P4s, GPU manufacturers have hit an energy wall, so that every new high-end card must be limited to a certain consumption (=heat exhaust), otherwise the card will need excessive heat removal, which would require drastic design restrictions. With the DIY market, no HW manufacturer would take the leap.

So all the visual improvement comes from die shriks (which imply better efficiency=better performance/watt) and from minuscule SW improvements.
At least that is the current market.

But instead of targeting a single GPU line (like console games), most PC games allow for customizations, so that you can remove visual details to have better fluidity with the same performance (I'm talking about GPU potential, not FPS).

I agree 100%. Games stories have plummeted to linear child's play.

Sad because it seems storyline gets worse and graphics only get like 2% better every year. They add some more polygons which are unnoticeable and bring in new features like tessellation which aren't even used properly by any game.

What I want to see it higher res textures and a proper hair system as well as the stories need to improve drastically.

I'd go for gameplay over high res textures any given day... I can only agree to Herr_Koos here.

its the reason abandonware sites even exist. if enough people didnt want to go back and play these games (granted alot of that feeling is nostalgia) they wouldnt be there. to me that means the games had a lasting impression, something i dont see happening now. not once have i gone "i think i wanna play call of duty 2 again". but i would love to play monkey island again, despite KNOWING all the riddles  

The common problems in modern games seem to be 4 main things.

1. Lack of storyline

2. Failed artists making some bits hi res and others low res like you see in Mass Effect

3. Linear gameplay which never allows you to really be in the world but constantly reminded of what you have to do and the devs coded you to do.


4. And lastly short games. This is the result of modern graphics which have limited the amount of maps unless you want a 20GB game. For instance I just finished Deus Ex HR and it only had two main cities which were small plus a final Panchea which was small.

^ I hear you. This is the same reason I've played through the original C&C campaign multiple times, but can't be bothered with the single-player mode of many modern RTS titles. SC2 is a notable exception; it doesn't have uber-impressive photo-realistic graphics, but it's a quality game which is tons of fun to play.

SC2 was very good and the best RTS I have played.


It had good graphics for an RTS and also the cinematics were absolutely stunning but Blizzard has always been good at CG animations.


But most of all it was very fun to play and the storyline gave you many options and was exiting.

its just the way the market goes. we see jumps in tech while the higher percentage of the market being stuck in 2005 with consoles. Companies would be stupid to not make games playable by the higher percentage of gamers.

i agree also, how many games now just seem console ported and slapped together at the last minute and end up performing like crap and hard to control. I havnt been able to get into RTS games since warcraft 3, I didnt get into all the SC2 hype when it was released, but i tried it recently and loved it. I think the visuals are actually pretty good too, but you dont need an uber system to run it playably.